Not your grandparents’ world: Canada needs to rethink foreign policy – Stephen J. Toope

2016/02/15 Leave a comment

Good overview of some of the challenges and opportunities facing Canadian foreign policy and domestic linkages by Stephen J. Toope, the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at UofT.

Excerpts of his piece on leveraging Canada’s diversity, echoing the Trudeau Foundation’s The Pluralism Project focussing on the economic dimension of pluralism, diversity and the future of citizenship.

But can we please stop trying to rebrand multiculturalism as pluralism as the previous government tried but ultimately realized that multiculturalism was in the Charter and was embraced by a majority of Canadians. The word may be ‘tainted’ in the USA and Europe, reflecting their very different histories and experiences, but isn’t here.

Pluralism should only be used in the Canadian context in an overarching sense, capturing the diversity between and among indigenous peoples, anglophones and francophones, and the diversity created by successive waves of immigration:

The new government has already declared that our pluralism is a primary asset to bring to our global engagements. This is true if we move beyond the lofty and too-often smug assertions that “diversity is our strength.”

Although our historical record is by no means pure, by world standards Canada has created a society that is generally inclusive of newcomers. Sadly, we have done far worse as concerns indigenous peoples. Our relative success with social pluralism is an asset only if we avoid preaching and use our diversity constructively.

That means making investments in development assistance that allow us to showcase and share how Canadian pluralism works. It means contributing actively in intergovernmental forums where migration and refugee issues are thrashed out. Above all, it means finding ways to mobilize our diaspora communities to create stronger linkages for Canadian business, culture and educational institutions with countries around the world. That is not the same as cynically pandering to narrow foreign-policy interests of those same communities in the hope of gaining domestic electoral advantage.

….The French, the British, the Germans, the Spanish, the Scandinavians and the Australians have all used culture, educational exchange, people-to-people ties, online communication campaigns, and tourism promotion to create a strong public awareness of their countries all around the world. We have no Canadian equivalent to the British Council or the Goethe Institute. Canadian embassies and high commissions effectively have no program budgets. The last government cut funding to the Commonwealth Scholarship, and reduced support to Canadian studies programs around the world so much that they are now on drip feed.

We shouldn’t resurrect tired models, but a new approach to promoting the creativity of Canadians globally is sorely needed, backed with increased resources. Canadian culture could be connected to that much-vaunted pluralism to create excitement around contemporary Canada. That is a major asset. We should strike while the positive and fresh Trudeau brand is putting Canada back on the global radar screen.

After identifying and focusing upon our assets, we then need to connect those assets to the projection of both interests and values. In a world where more and more Canadians are connected beyond our borders in value-based environmental, religious or human-rights networks, and where devastating events that take place halfway around the world are known immediately, it is no longer plausible to argue that nations have only economic or other material interests. One picture of a little Syrian boy dead on a Turkish beach forced a Canadian response. Our foreign-policy calculations are not only rational, but emotional as well, rooted in shared perceptions of who we are as Canadians and, increasingly, by who we define as allies, partners and friends.

Source: Not your grandparents’ world: Canada needs to rethink foreign policy – The Globe and Mail

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Meryl Streep’s ‘We’re All Africans’ Flub at the Berlin Festival Makes It Clear: It’s Time to Retire Talk of ‘Humanism’ – The Atlantic

2016/02/15 Leave a comment

Good deconstruction of the use/misuse/abuse of the term humanism:

“Humanism,” used as an anti-ism, is a lexical version of all those people who claim, as if they are unique in the sentiment: “I think all lives matter.”

If transcendence is your aim—if you happen to prefer the soaring over the searing in your rhetoric and in your life—then “humanism” is an ideal term. It is soft and smooth and inviting and historically inflected and, above all, conveniently unfalsifiable. Who doesn’t believe in the value and the potential of collective humanity? Who wouldn’t be excited by all that might be achieved by, as Sarah Jessica Parker put it, “a humanist movement”? Humanism is the stuff of the Taj Mahal and Leonardo da Vinci and “one giant leap for mankind.” It is also, today, the stuff of cultural utopianism. Who wouldn’t love a world in which the seams of our great human tapestry are rendered effectively invisible?

In that sense, “humanism” makes for a self-contained tautology. But it also makes, as a piece of rhetoric, for a sentiment that is extremely glib: It is concern trolling, essentially, in the guise of inclusivity. Used as an alternative to feminism or any other civil-rights movement—used, broadly, as a justification for convening an all-white film-festival jury in the year 2016—it suggests that those movements are somehow petty or point-missing. That they ignore the beautiful human forest for its trees. That they insist on strife and manufacture drama and, all in all, have no chill. I am for nice, easy balance.

In all that, the deployment of “humanism” effectively forestalls conversation about gender or race or power or privilege or any of the other things that, especially right now, desperately need talking about. What do you say to someone who refuses to acknowledge divisions? To someone who seems to see social movements that fight systemic injustices as awkwardly thirsty? To someone who ignores the ongoing nature of the civil-rights movement, and the battles women have fought for equality? Streep’s recent film, Suffragette, features a character willingly martyring herself so that her fellow women might one day win the vote. “Humanism” treats that sacrifice as, effectively, a little bit awkward.

Which is all to say: To confess that one sees oneself, all social strife aside, as a “humanist” is not to confess a partisanship with our better angels. It is to willfully ignore history. 

It is also to ignore, by the way, the history of the concept of “humanism” itself. “Humanism,” on the surface, suggests the Renaissance, and the flowering of human potential, and the ending of the Dark Ages, and education, and art. It whiffs of both Enlightenment and enlightenment. Humanism, certainly, embodied all that as a historical movement. But that was centuries ago. Today, most commonly, the term functions as an abbreviation of “secular humanism,” or the espousal of cultural values that have been disentangled from belief in the supernatural. It suggests the primacy of social norms over religious ones. “Humanism” suggests, essentially, “atheism that isn’t jerky about it.” 

… Regardless, there are many ironies here. One of them is that humanism, in all its incarnations, has historically involved a rejection of regressive thinking in favor of something more “enlightened,” more forward-thinking, more optimistic about what humans can achieve when they strive for something together. The celebrities’ brand of humanism, on the surface, promises to the do the same. “Why classify people?” Charlotte Rampling asked in her now-infamous questioning of the validity of #OscarsSoWhite.

But in a time of legitimate division and strife—in a time that equates progress with the recognition of social divisions rather than the rejection of them—it’s Rampling’s question that’s regressive. It’s humanism that is, counter to all logic, on the wrong side of history. That’s the real tautology here: We classify people because, well, we classify people. It might not be the world we want, but it is the world we have. Loftiness is lovely, but humans—from our African origins to the present day—were made, in the end, to walk on the ground.

Source: Meryl Streep’s ‘We’re All Africans’ Flub at the Berlin Festival Makes It Clear: It’s Time to Retire Talk of ‘Humanism’ – The Atlantic

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Justin Trudeau says next GG will ‘reflect the diversity of Canada’

2016/02/15 Leave a comment

Clear message and consistent with record so far:

In a Friday announcement in Toronto, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hinted at the nature of the coming change-up in the governor general’s office.

Trudeau said the next appointment would express Canada’s diversity and referenced the answer he gave last November when he was asked why he created a cabinet with equal number of men and women.

“I suspect I might be saying ‘because it’s 2017’ when the time for that decision [on the Governor General] comes around to be explained,” he said.

“I can reassure you, I will take into account the nature of Canada and the desire of Canadians to see institutions and appointments across the government that reflect the diversity of Canada,” said Trudeau.

“We appoint people who look like Canada, who understand the extraordinary diversity of Canada and highlight the amazing fact that Canada is one of the few (places) in the world that is made stronger because of its differences.”

Trudeau commended current Gov. Gen. David Johnston on the work he’s done to represent Canada, push innovation and work on youth issues.

“He’s doing an exceptional job and I’m proud to have him as our Governor General,” said Trudeau, noting that he’ll have big shoes to fill when the time comes.

Source: Justin Trudeau says next GG will ‘reflect the diversity of Canada’ – Politics – CBC News

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Islam was a religion of love, and the Taj Mahal proves it – The Washington Post

2016/02/15 Leave a comment

Haroon Moghul on the Islam of medieval times:


The sun is seen rising over the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, Nov. 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

The Mughals are of course long gone now, and so is their world. It’s been done in by colonialism, sectarianism, a rush to modernization, and the great cultural distance that has opened up over centuries. But perhaps it’s worth revisiting, even a little bit.

I’m not rosy-eyed about that past. I certainly don’t think medieval monarchy is a model for the modern Muslim world, or any part of the world. These were kings and queens, who came to power through force. But that doesn’t mean they can’t speak to us.

The Mughals and Ottomans were more tolerant than many of their contemporary rivals. They were progressive for their time, and I don’t just mean compared to Muslims. These certainly weren’t secular democracies with any concept of human rights, but they also didn’t force their subjects to change religions.

They also cultivated a culture, rich and dynamic, that easily crossed boundaries, and that left us with world heritage. Instead of destroying the world’s heritage. And at the center of that philosophy was love. It was love that animated Rumi’s poetry; far from being some outlier in the Muslim world, he was a traditionally trained Sunni Muslim scholar, who communicated in unforgettable verse a worldview that most Muslims would have shared.

How else, after all, would you make sense of a God you cannot see, and a relationship that must be exclusive, except through love, which is, like God, invisible but nigh omnipotent, capable of moving men and mountains—no enemy ever unseated Shah Jahan’s empire in his time, but the loss of his love nearly broke the man. That idea of love was enough to animate a Muslim world that was tolerant enough to see Sunni and Shiite married, not mired in enmity.

There’s a reason South Asian Islam is so incredibly diverse and pluralistic—and that openness ran from everyday villagers who mingled across sect and religion all the way up to an emperor and empress, so deeply in love that their romance remains etched upon the face of the world. The interior of the building is adorned with Koranic verses, not only in a fervent wish to see the queen, and the husband who so honored her, sped by God to paradise.

But because love of one’s wife and love of one’s God were not just seen as complementary, but of the same kind; the former was the model for the latter. The Taj Mahal is of course many things to many people. For my beloved wife, it’s an unfair marker to hold a husband to. (I swear I would if I could.) It should also be a monument to Sunni and Shiite harmony, a reminder of a time when the core of the Muslim faith was love: Love of a person for himself, for his family, for his neighbors, for his Prophet, for his God. A time that shall come again. When Islam can be progressive for its time, when we will make the world beautiful, when we can be unapologetically Muslim and shamelessly besotted, because God is beautiful, as Muhammad said, and loves beauty.

Source: Islam was a religion of love, and the Taj Mahal proves it – The Washington Post

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Liberal government has yet to fill 200 vacant federal posts — on top of 22 empty Senate spots

2016/02/13 Leave a comment

Another area which will test the Government’s commitment in diversity and inclusion:

In addition to the 22 vacancies in the Senate, the Liberal government has yet to fill more than 200 positions that are open on federal boards, commissions and tribunals.

Three months after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet were sworn in, there has been little progress making appointments to the bodies whose duties include adjudicating immigration cases, monitoring the regulation of nuclear energy or setting rules for the broadcasting industry.

Some of these positions are considered patronage posts, often doled out to party supporters, but many are important to keeping the government and its affiliates running smoothly.

The Immigration and Refugee Board, for example, rules on legal challenges of decisions made on applications for asylum or immigration. For people seeking to stay in Canada, a timely hearing is crucial. The board has 25 vacancies, including 14 in the Toronto regional office, with another member’s term expiring at the end of the month.

There are 11 vacancies at the Parole Board of Canada, which rules on the release of incarcerated offenders.

Appointees to these jobs must be named by order of the cabinet, usually on the advice of an appointments co-ordinator in the Prime Minister’s Office, with input from cabinet ministers. Mary Ng, who previously worked at Queen’s Park, is in charge of appointments in Trudeau’s PMO.

The task of filling patronage posts may have been delayed while the PMO worked to appoint chiefs of staff, directors of communication and other exempt staff members to work in ministerial offices.

Privy Council records show 132 positions listed as vacant on 57 federal bodies, and an analysis has found another 78 people on boards, commissions and tribunals whose terms of appointment have concluded, requiring re-appointment or replacement.

The list does not include the judicial appointments that government, through the Department of Justice, is required to make regularly. So far, cabinet has not named a single judge.

Filing these jobs can be a tricky business, especially for new governments that may have railed against the previous government’s perceived excesses of patronage. Indeed, the Conservative government drew fire for a series of patronage appointments made in June, not long before the beginning of the federal election campaign, and was further criticized for re-appointing people whose terms hadn’t ended.

Source: Liberal government has yet to fill 200 vacant federal posts — on top of 22 empty Senate spots

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Newcomers – Reconciliation Needs You Too – New Canadian Media

2016/02/13 Leave a comment

One of the 94 recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and one that will likely be implemented to some degree.

As Adrienne Clarkson notes in her book, Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship, when immigrants become citizens they inherit both the good and bad parts of our history, and thus better knowledge of the history of Indigenous Peoples and their treatment is essential.

It is likely, should the Liberal government revise the citizenship study guide, Discover Canada, (almost a certainty), the overall diversity and inclusion theme will feature prominently, including with respect to Indigenous Peoples:

Canada’s Indigenous people are asking immigrants to join the nationwide process of reconciliation by learning about and celebrating Indigenous culture.

One of the many recommendations that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) published in their final report calls on the government to incorporate more information on the history of Canada’s diverse Indigenous communities in information kits for newcomers and in citizenship tests.

This includes information on residential schools and the Treaties through which settlers dispossessed the Indigenous peoples of their land.

The recommendation is just one 94 outlined in the report from the TRC, whose work on restoring the relationship between the Canadian government and Indigenous communities culminated with the report’s delivery on Dec. 15, 2015.

Learning the true history of Canada

“I really think it’s important to realize that this was not an empty land when people came here. There were thriving nations in this land,” says Jane Hubbard, acting director of operations of the Legacy of Hope Foundation.

Her organization works to raise awareness about the history of residential schools in Canada and to promote reconciliation among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Canada.

“I think it’s very important that the true history be told, so that people understand that Canada did not start in 1867. There was a long history before contact as well,” she says.

Hubbard says Aboriginal peoples’ present-day contributions to society should also be included and celebrated.

“Often in a lot of government materials, Aboriginal peoples are referred to in such a way as to make someone think that perhaps they are a historical entity,” she says.

It is vital that newcomers do independent research to learn about Indigenous culture, instead of absorbing the misinterpretations of the general narrative.

“We would like to see more of the current-day representation. Thriving cultures, restoration of language. That people are here and walking amongst us and that they are lively contributors to society.”

Andrew Tataj is a second-generation Canadian whose parents came to Canada in the 1970s from Ireland and former Yugoslavia. “Learning about our history is important, because it can help newcomers assimilate into our culture, especially knowing about the country’s past – good and bad things,” says the computer engineer.

However, he is skeptical about the positive effect of providing more information. “I don’t think much can be changed when it comes to awareness. … It won’t get their land back,” he says.

Participating in reconciliation

Heather Igloliorte, an Inuit professor and chair in Indigenous art history and community engagement at Concordia University, outlines some ways in which newcomers can participate actively in the process of reconciliation.

“I think that one of the things that new Canadians could do is attend festivals and celebrations and Aboriginal peoples’ day and other events, so that they have an opportunity to meet and converse with Indigenous people. So that their understanding does not come only from literature, but also from first-person experience,” she says.

One of the primary focuses of the TRC was to expose the truths of the residential-school system.

Igloliorte says that it is vital that newcomers do independent research to learn about Indigenous culture, instead of absorbing the misinterpretations of the general narrative about them.

“It’s incredibly important for newcomers to Canada to understand the history of how we got to where we are today, so that they do not simply absorb the stereotypes and the racist perspectives towards Indigenous people that we still have in Canada right now,” says Igloliorte.

“I think Aboriginal people did not receive enough respect from the very beginning,” says Khaled Elrodesly, a biomedical engineer from Egypt who recently took his citizenship test. “They are supposed to be the first settlers of the Americas and everyone else that comes after them should respect their thoughts and ideas and try to connect with them.”

Source: Newcomers – Reconciliation Needs You Too – New Canadian Media

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Richmond moves to require English on bus shelter ads

2016/02/12 Leave a comment

Reasonable approach:

Many Richmond bus shelters ads for everything from real estate agents to Crest toothpaste, mouthwash, Visa cards and, more recently, Budweiser beer have been exclusively printed in Chinese.

But now, the City of Richmond has tweaked rules so that these ads must now be predominantly in English.

The change comes as the city’s contract with Pattison Outdoor Advertising expired at the end of 2015 and it is currently negotiating terms for a new one.

“In the (request for proposals), we inserted a requirement,” said city spokesman Ted Townsend. It is “an extension of what we tell (private) businesses about signage. It’s our preference that at least 50 per cent (of the text) is in English, but (with private businesses) this is not required by law.”

He said Chinese-only signs have led to complaints from the community, and the rule change is in response to these.

Richmond will not similarly regulate business signs that are on private property, but Townsend said the city is able to make a case for requiring English on bus shelter ads.

“This is in keeping with our desire to be an inclusive community with signage that all people can understand and support,” said Townsend.

Source: Richmond moves to require English on bus shelter ads

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ICYMI: Woman wearing burka denied service in Edmonton shop because of ‘no-mask policy’

2016/02/12 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see whether a complaint is filed and if so, how will it be handled:

The owner of a north Edmonton shoe repair store says the reason he refused to serve a woman wearing a burka was motivated by safety, not religious or cultural reasons.

“We have a no-mask policy in the store and I certainly cannot discuss any race, religion, politics on the (sales) floor,” said Ryan Vale, owner of Edmonton Shoe Repair in Northgate Centre mall.

The response comes in the wake of accusations from 19-year-old Sarii Ghalab who claimed Vale told her he could not serve her because it goes against his ethical beliefs.

“He blatantly told her not to touch anything in his store and that he will not offer her any service,” Ghalab’s sister wrote in a Reddit post while searching for online advice.

A burka is a traditional dress worn by some Muslim women that covers everything except the eyes.

Ghalab later told CBC News that she tried to deliver flowers to Vale along with a letter explaining the reasons she wears the burka. But she said he simply ushered her out of the store.

Vale said that isn’t the case.

“I certainly did not bring up the issue of race,” said Vale, pointing out a hand-written sign on his counter saying “Please, for security reasons no facial coverings Thank you” as well as another printout saying “For security reasons NO MASKED CUSTOMERS ALLOWED” with a silhouette of a head wearing a balaclava.

“That’s the way it’s always been. I know lots of businesses adhere to that business — strictly a no-mask, veiled mask, policy in the store; for white people, black people, dogs, anything. Please show who you are for safety,” Vale said.

Ghalab said she isn’t looking for retribution (though her sister posted she would file a human rights complaint) and the incident details remain he-said-she-said.

Source: Woman wearing burka denied service in Edmonton shop because of ‘no-mask policy’

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ICYMI: How Ann Coulter inspired Donald Trump

2016/02/11 Leave a comment

Interesting little nugget connected to Canadian politics, the reference in the last para to Peter Brimelow, a seminal influence on the Reform party and Stephen Harper, according to William Johnson and Paul Wells.

Helps explain some of the anti-Muslim rhetoric during the last campaign:

Being a pundit is a show business occupation, and Coulter, like many show business stars, seemed to have been supplanted by younger models. She had become famous in the cable TV world of the 1990s as a good-looking blond lawyer willing to say the most outrageous things about liberals, especially Bill Clinton. As this kind of put-down became more common, and channels like Fox News put conservative blond women all over television, her uniqueness seemed to fade and her sales with it: in 2011, the Washington Post reported weak sales for her book Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America.

¡Adios, America! changed that, debuting at No. 2 on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list and reinventing Coulter’s image. The younger pundits who were eclipsing her have been thrown for a loop by Trump’s rise—Glenn Beck contributed to National Review’s “Against Trump” issue last month—and left Coulter as the voice of pro-Trump punditry. When Trump walked out on a Fox News Republican debate, Coulter, writing in the Hollywood Reporter this week, trashed Fox as “trivial and self-important” and praised Trump as the only candidate who “takes principled stands.” Trump fans can count on her to defend their idol against mainstream conservatism.

If Trump is pulling Coulter back into the limelight, she might end up pulling a lot of other people in with her. The Southern Poverty Law Center pointed out that Coulter “routinely cites white nationalists” in ¡Adios, America! In an interview with Chronicles magazine, she stated that one of her key inspirations for writing the book was Alien Nation author Peter Brimelow, who recently called for the expulsion of Muslims from the U.S. and declared “whites are America.” A year ago, such associations seemed like a bad move for a mainstream conservative. But, thanks to Donald Trump, Ann Coulter might be the head of the new conservative mainstream.

Source: How Ann Coulter inspired Donald Trump

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How Beyonce and Bruno Mars Overshadowed Coldplay’s Bland Uplift at the Super Bowl Halftime Show – The Atlantic

2016/02/10 Leave a comment

One of the more interesting takes on the half-show:

Both Beyoncé and Bruno wore black. They dressed the same as the people they stood shoulder to shoulder with. And then, before being interrupted by a strange retrospective video about past halftimes, they offered a reminder that synchronized dancing can be the best kind of spectacle there is—better than Left Shark, better than a middle finger to the camera, better than a crotch slide from Springsteen. There was no racial subtext to this, just text. Mars’s crew was B-boying. Beyoncé’s was channeling black radical movements and Michael Jackson in 1993. These were displays of cultural power coming from specific places, with specific meanings. They were rooted in history, but obviously spoke to the present.

In the short time since it arrived online without warning the day before the Super Bowl, “Formation” has already generated a monograph’s worth of writings about Beyoncé’s choice to tie her famous swagger explicitly (and hilariously, and cleverly) to her race, gender, and cultural heritage—to “Jackson Five nostrils” and dates to Red Lobster. The video features her on stoops and in parking lots and in old-money New Orleans drawing rooms, looking fly. Everyone has the potential to appreciate her infectious attitude, the song’s strange squeaky beat, and the video’s instantly iconic visuals. But among the group of people she is directly addressing, many say “Formation” feels like something more than just a great pop song—it feels life-giving and maybe even revolutionary.

But forgoing the universal also involves risk, as Beyoncé surely knew. The aggregating of social-media users who find her totally humane imagery “anti-police,” or who hear a song about a person’s lived experience and reply with the inanity of “all lives matter,” has begun. So too has concern trolling about her acclaim from people who’ve never connected to her music. If you find “Formation” tuneless or offensive, fine. Just don’t go impugning the motives of all the people in the weeks to come walking down the street in a very specific rhythm, internally chanting “I slay.” Beyoncé no longer asks that everyone get in formation, and that’s why so many people probably will.

A lot of headlines today say that Beyoncé won the Super Bowl, and a lot of memesare fixing on the moment toward the end when she, Mars, and Martin all sang together. It was meant to be a beautiful sight, but it ended up feeling awkward; Martin seemed weak, pitiful, next to the two of them and what they’d just done. There are probably a lot of reasons for that perception. One might be that he had pretended to stand for everything, but actually stood for very little. Beyoncé did not make that mistake.

Source: How Beyonce and Bruno Mars Overshadowed Coldplay’s Bland Uplift at the Super Bowl Halftime Show – The Atlantic

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