In Sweden, concern grows over anti-Muslim hate incidents

2024/07/05 Leave a comment

Of note and a reminder that hate is happening to both Jews and Muslims:

On the night of Tuesday, May 28, a car parked in front of the Skövde mosque, which opened in 2023, just outside the town between Gothenburg and Stockholm. The driver threw the corpse of a wild boar against the building, which is in a small wood, before driving off, unaware that the surveillance cameras installed by the Bosnian Islamic Association had filmed the action. “Unfortunately, we’re used to this sort of thing,” said Mirza Babovic, 66, an employee of the association. He reeled off incidents such as Islamophobic tags painted outside the former prayer hall, the remains of a pig dumped on the building site and the windows of a container smashed.

This time, Imam Smajo Sahat, who reported it, decided not to publicize the incident, “so as not to give publicity to its perpetrator, nor to give ideas to others.” He did not want to worry his followers either. But local journalists got wind of it and before long, the national media began to report it, “no doubt because it happened just a few days before the European elections,” said the imam, still dismayed by the violence of the discourse against Islam and Muslims during the campaign.

In November 2023, far-right leader Jimmie Akesson – whose Sweden Democrats party has been allied with the right-wing coalition government since October 2022 – declared that he wanted to destroy mosques, ban the construction of new buildings and wiretap Muslim religious communities in order to combat “Islamism.” His right-hand man, Richard Jomshof, president of the parliamentary legal affairs committee, followed suit, calling for a ban on all symbols of Islam in public spaces, which he likened to “the swastika.”

Shocking remarks

On social media, party officials have constantly denounced the “Islamization of Sweden,” claiming that “Swedes are on the verge of becoming a minority in their own country.” This rhetoric is not new. Back in 2009, a year before his party entered parliament, Akesson asserted that Muslims were “the biggest threat to Sweden.”

Source: In Sweden, concern grows over anti-Muslim hate incidents

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Babb: School boards shouldn’t rush into adopting anti-Palestinian racism strategies

2024/07/04 Leave a comment

Sensible but unlikely to be followed:

…People will also likely struggle to understand what differentiates anti-Palestinian racism from Islamophobia. For the average person, many forms of racism, including, for instance, antisemitism and Islamophobia, are already difficult to comprehend, let alone address. By adding anti-Palestinian racism into the mix, there is serious potential to further complicate the anti-racism landscape at a time when efforts to combat many forms of racism are struggling to achieve substantive results.

Going forward, senior decision makers – particularly those responsible for educating and protecting our children – need to start having more realistic and difficult discussions before moving toward knee-jerk initiatives that could threaten certain groups of people. Indeed, there are reasons why hundreds of concerned parents, educators and community leaders protested outside the building where the vote took place. They’re worried about the future of their children in Canada’s public-school system, and many are left feeling more vulnerable than they ever have before. One Jewish community leader recently told me that despite all of the things he has seen since Oct. 7, the situation in the schools is what has him the most worried.

If we’re going to focus on anti-Palestinian racism, it needs to be done right, and it needs to be done after all voices are heard and difficult discussions are had.

Source: School boards shouldn’t rush into adopting anti-Palestinian racism strategies

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

France: Citizenship, equality, jus soli: Republican principles cannot be betrayed

2024/07/04 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

You can’t equate a “political adversary and an enemy of the Republic”: This demand was clearly carried out by Albane Branlant, a candidate for Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, who could have stood in the second round of the parliamentary elections but withdrew in favor of the left-wing candidate François Ruffin to help beat the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in their Somme district. Far from being rhetorical, this demand is an imperative.

In contrast to this resolute and consistent defense of the “republican front” against the far right, the procrastination of leaders of the outgoing governing coalition and, worse still, the blindness of the part of the members of the right-wing Les Républicains who have not allied with the RN, reflect a loss of fundamental political bearings. The situation in France, which in a few days’ time risks being led by the heirs of a long anti-republican political history, calls for a painful but essential review of the hierarchy of priorities. At the top of the hierarchy is the defense of the principles inherited from the French Revolution.

In this respect, the RN’s plans to discriminate against dual nationals, roll back the right to citizenship for people born in France, and create a “national priority” are far less acceptable than any of the other policy platforms submitted to the electorate.

Unconstitutional discrimination

The promise to ban dual-nationals from certain civil servant jobs revives the far right’s long-standing obsession with the “false French,” which, from Charles Maurras’s Action Française monarchist movement to the Vichy regime, fueled hatred of Jews, calling them “unassimilable” and pushing for measures to “denaturalize” them. Today, it targets French people of Muslim culture or religion, accused of being “French on paper” but of dubious allegiance.

Insulting and absurd from an economic, cultural, security and diplomatic point of view, the hunt for dual nationals also amounts to unconstitutional discrimination between French citizens. In the RN’s arsenal, it adds to the astonishing plan to completely abandon jus soli, the right to citizenship for any person born in France, running against the principle of integration by birth through the socialization in France of children of foreigners. This principle has been enshrined in the Constitution or in French law since 1791, and not even Vichy wanted to call it into question. As for the “national priority,” it relies on self-proclaimed “common sense” to attack the constitutional principles of equality and solidarity.

Wind of revolt

What the RN’s first two projects have in common is that they would weaken France’s sovereignty by confining large segments of its population to foreign nationalities. All three measures, by multiplying attacks on the egalitarian and fraternal foundations of our society – in other words, on the republican promise – would provoke anger, resentment and violence. All the while opening up an immediate conflict with the Constitutional Council, whose current president, Laurent Fabius, appointed for nine years by President François Hollande in February 2016, has demonstrated his vigilance on this matter.

If constitutional and historical references appear to carry little weight in the face of the strong wind of revolt represented by the RN’s score in the first round of the elections, political leaders deciding on withdrawals for the second round who ignore or neglect them will bear a heavy responsibility: That of having sold out centuries of republican accomplishments in hazardous electoral bargaining.

Source: Citizenship, equality, jus soli: Republican principles cannot be betrayed

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Adams and Parkin: Canadians don’t need to worry about identity politics

2024/07/03 Leave a comment

Useful reminder:

On Canada Day, there is nothing wrong with focusing on what we have in common. But in doing so, we can celebrate the fact that what brings us (and keeps us) together is a respect for the things that sometimes make us different. That is the paradox, and the beauty, of what we call national unity.

Michael Adams is the founder and president of the Environics Institute for Survey Research. Andrew Parkin is the Institute’s executive director.

Source: Canadians don’t need to worry about identity politics

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Gurski: Again, the Liberals show they don’t really understand national security

2024/07/02 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary on the IRGC listing and related security issues:

Last week saw a flurry of activity from the Canadian government on national security.  First, it announced on June 19 that the IRGC — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — had been formally “listed” as a terrorist entity. Then the Senate approved Bill C-70 calling for the establishment of a foreign agent registry.

I will defer comments on C-70 for later and focus on the significance – if any – of the decision to add the IRGC to a large number of “listed entities.” The government crowed that it took this move after “years” of hard work and claimed this demonstrated, yet again, how seriously it takes national security.

Except that the IRGC move was not all that urgent: the Conservatives asked that the Liberal government list this group back in 2018, which makes you wonder what took so long. It is not as if the government needed to study whether the IRGC merited this rank given its 40 years of support for other listed entities (among which are Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) and well-known penchant for mucking about in the Middle East and elsewhere. Calling it a terrorist group now does not exactly constitute rocket science.

The terrorist listing tool dates back to 2002 (full disclosure: I wrote the first al-Qaida listing that year while working as a senior terrorism analyst at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS) and is used to identify groups the government believes engage in terrorist activity. It is handy largely from a financing perspective: if you are daft enough to send a cheque or e-transfer to Hamas leadership, you are guilty of terrorist financing.

But aside from that, the listing process suffers from two problems. First, it is not essential for a group (or individual) to be listed to warrant attention and investigation from our protectors (Communications Security Establishment, CSIS, RCMP, etc.). We at CSIS had been looking at al-Qaida for decades prior to the creation of the list; in other words, we did not need some mandarin to say “gee, AQ is a terrorist group, maybe our spies should monitor it.” Furthermore, the non-appearance of a group (or individual) from the list does not preclude investigating it (or him/her). Our spies aren’t waiting for orders to carry out their work in accordance with their well-established practices and legislative mandates.

Second, the listings are often purely political in nature. The addition of the Proud Boys in January 2021 was clearly a knee-jerk reaction to the raid on the U.S. Capitol by a dog’s breakfast of wankers, including some members of the U.S. branch of this group. The chapter in Canada has never carried out a single act of violence in this country and frankly, to cite a friend of mine who investigated the far right in Canada in the 1990s, couldn’t make a cheese sandwich. Sources told me that CSIS was not in favour of listing the Proud Boys as the group did not merit that kind of attention/status.

Sometimes groups are “delisted” for purely political reasons too. The Harper government took the anti-Iranian People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI, better known as the MeK) off the list in the early 2010s, despite its use of violence here and abroad. Go figure.

The timing of the IRGC decision also raises eyebrows. Just before the House of Commons rose for the summer? Did the government think no one was paying attention?  Just before a byelection in Toronto? To show it takes national security “very seriously” (to quote Chrystia Freeland)? To deflect criticism of its handling of the ongoing People’s Republic of China interference gong show?

For what it is worth, I have no issue with naming the IRGC a terrorist entity. I worked as an Iranian analyst for 20 years at both CSE and CSIS, and I understand what this ideological bunch of thugs stands for.

At the same time, the choice of day/month for this action does nothing to shake my belief that this government neither comprehends nor cares about national security. The IRGC could have been listed 20 years ago, and in all honesty should have been part of the original process just after 9/11. Making a big deal of it now just looks, well, political.

Phil Gurski is President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting.
http://www.borealisthreatandrisk.com

Source: Gurski: Again, the Liberals show they don’t really understand national security

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , ,

Yakabuski | Ne pas apprendre de ses erreurs [Dattani]

2024/07/02 Leave a comment

Agreed. Where is the vetting? And for not disclosing this information, Dattani shouild be automatically disqualified:

Lors de la Journée internationale dédiée à la mémoire des victimes de l’Holocauste de cette année, la présidente intérimaire de la Commission canadienne des droits de la personne (CCDP), Charlotte-Anne Malischewski, s’est déclarée « profondément préoccupée par la montée fulgurante de l’antisémitisme » qui s’observe au Canada depuis les attaques du Hamas sur Israël commises en octobre dernier.

« Lorsque la haine se présente dans nos communautés, elle menace la sécurité publique, la démocratie et les droits de la personne, a-t-elle tenu à rappeler. La haine nous divise et nous oppose les uns aux autres. »

Dans le contexte actuel, où la guerre à Gaza a fait de la communauté juive canadienne le bouc émissaire des critiques visant le gouvernement israélien de Benjamin Nétanyahou, on se serait attendu à ce que le ministre fédéral de la Justice, Arif Virani, s’efforce de trouver un digne successeur à Mme Malischewski pour occuper sur une base permanente ce poste se trouvant au sommet de la hiérarchie des instances des droits de la personne au Canada.

D’autant plus que la CCDP se verra octroyer de nouveaux pouvoirs en vertu du projet de loi C-63 sur les préjudices en ligne afin de déterminer la validité des plaintes concernant le contenu haineux. Le nouveau président de la CCDP doit lui-même être au-dessus de tout soupçon de parti pris pour ou contre tout plaignant qui s’adressera à la commission.

Or, en nommant Birju Dattani à la présidence de la CCDP, le 15 juin dernier, M. Virani semble avoir surtout cherché à plaire à l’aile progressiste du Parti libéral du Canada. La nomination de cet ancien directeur de la Commission des droits de la personne du Yukon et « défenseur de l’équité, de la diversité et de l’inclusion » rappelle celle d’Amira Elghawaby, devenue l’an dernier représentante spéciale chargée de la lutte contre l’islamophobie, qui s’est vue hantée par ses écrits considérés comme antiquébécois après l’annonce de sa nomination.

Mme Elghawaby s’est vite excusée. Mais son acte de contrition a aussitôt été remis en doute par les politiciens québécois, et sa crédibilité en a irrémédiablement été entachée. Si elle a pu garder son poste, elle est toutefois devenue quasi invisible depuis son entrée en fonction.

Le cas de Birju Dattani est beaucoup plus grave. Selon les révélations publiées cette semaine dans les médias torontois, le passé de cet ancien président de l’Association des étudiants musulmans de l’Université de Calgary est semé de propos antisémites et d’associations douteuses. Alors qu’il étudiait à Londres, en 2012, il a participé à une manifestation devant l’ambassade d’Israël au cours de laquelle les manifestants répétaient le slogan « le sionisme, c’est du terrorisme ». En 2015, alors qu’il était chargé de cours dans la capitale britannique, il a participé à une conférence aux côtés d’un membre du groupe fondamentaliste islamiste Hizb ut-Tahrir, qui prône la charia et que le gouvernement britannique a inscrit sur sa liste des organisations terroristes prohibées cette année.

Le Centre consultatif des relations juives et israéliennes ne demande rien de moins que le retrait de sa nomination. Selon l’organisme, M. Dattani « a partagé des articles comparant Israël à l’Allemagne nazie, a participé à une table ronde au Royaume-Uni avec un membre du Hizb ut-Tahrir, […] qui cherche à établir un nouveau califat et s’oppose à l’existence d’un État israélien, et a donné à plusieurs reprises des conférences sur le mouvement Boycott, désinvestissement et sanctions (BDS) lors de la Semaine contre l’apartheid israélien dans des universités britanniques ».

Le bureau d’Arif Virani a plaidé l’ignorance en disant que M. Dattani ne l’avait pas informé de ses gazouillis controversés ou de son militantisme anti-Israël lors du processus de nomination à la présidence de la CCDP. À l’époque où il vivait à Londres, M. Dattani utilisait un autre prénom. Cela n’épargne toutefois pas le ministre d’être accusé d’avoir failli à la tâche de procéder à des vérifications rigoureuses avant de le nommer.

M. Virani promet maintenant d’effectuer un examen officiel de la nomination de M. Dattani avant le 8 août, soit la date de son entrée en fonction à la tête de la CCDP, et de rendre le rapport de cet examen public. Pour sa part, M. Dattani s’est excusé cette semaine dans une entrevue au Globe and Mail, où il reconnaît que ses propos et ses gazouillis antérieurs ont pu blesser des membres de la communauté juive. « Je ne le ferais pas maintenant », a-t-il souligné, en précisant que son opinion avait « évolué » depuis.

Tant mieux si Birju Dattani reconnaît ses torts. Sa nomination reste néanmoins irrecevable. Après tout, il a manifestement essayé de cacher ses propos antérieurs aux membres du bureau du ministre de la Justice, qui lui ont certainement demandé, lors du processus de nomination, de leur faire part de toute information potentiellement compromettante sur son passé. Les Canadiens doivent pouvoir croire en l’impartialité de la CCDP pour que cette instance conserve la crédibilité nécessaire au bon accomplissement de sa fonction critique, qui est celle de protéger la population canadienne contre la discrimination.

Quant au gouvernement de Justin Trudeau, disons que la nomination de M. Dattani est un autre exemple d’un excès de zèle progressiste, qui se retourne encore une fois contre lui. Disons qu’il ne semble pas apprendre de ses erreurs.

Source: Chronique | Ne pas apprendre de ses erreurs

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

USA: Newly naturalized citizens could theoretically swing the election: Report

2024/06/29 Leave a comment

Tends to assume that new voters are potentially monolithic in their voting intentions:

The number of foreign nationals in the U.S. currently eligible for naturalization outnumbers the 2020 presidential margin of victory in five battleground states.

A report released by the American Immigration Council (AIC) on Thursday concluded that if some or all of the country’s 7.4 million not-yet-naturalized-but-eligible residents got their citizenship before November, they could swing the 2024 election.

That’s unlikely to happen, as the naturalization process for eligible foreign nationals takes roughly eight months from application to receiving a certificate of citizenship.

But the report highlights the disconnect between the size of immigrant communities, their economic impact and their political power.

It says immigrants make up 13.8 percent of the U.S. population, but only 10 percent of eligible voters.

And potential citizens could in theory sway both battleground states and a couple of key red ones.

The researchers found that 574,800 immigrants in Florida are likely eligible to naturalize, while former President Trump’s margin of victory there was 371,686 votes.

In Texas, the naturalization-eligible population is estimated at 789,500, and the 2020 presidential margin of victory was 631,221.

The margin of victory in some battleground states pales in comparison to the number of potential new voters.

In Arizona, 164,000 people can apply for citizenship, and the vote difference was 10,457, about a 16-to-1 ratio; in Georgia, the ratio is about 13-to-1.

Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin all show up on the list, with naturalization-eligible resident to 2020 victory margin ratios of around 8-to-1, 3-to-1, 2-to-1, and 5-to-2, respectively.

The report also found that immigrants paid 16.2 percent of all taxes paid by U.S. households in 2022, despite having less political representation.

Source: Newly naturalized citizens could theoretically swing the election: Report

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , ,

Rioux | La gauche et l’antisémitisme

2024/06/29 Leave a comment

On current French debates in the lead up to the elections and in general:

« Nous ne vivons pas un antisémitisme résiduel, mais un antisémitisme pesant, visible, palpable. Notre fille l’a vécu dans sa chair. » Ceux qui parlent ainsi sont les parents de cette enfant de 12 ans violée la semaine dernière dans un local désaffecté de Courbevoie.

Un geste d’une sauvagerie tellement inconcevable qu’il est devenu, à quelques jours du premier tour, l’un des événements marquants de cette campagne éclair des élections législatives en France. L’enfant a été violée, torturée, menacée d’être brûlée et soumise à une tentative d’extorsion par trois jeunes musulmans de 12 et 13 ans pour la seule et unique raison qu’elle aurait dissimulé à son petit ami qu’elle était juive. Celui-ci lui aurait « clairement reproché d’être juive, en affirmant qu’elle était forcément pro-Israël et complice d’un génocide en Palestine », selon son avocate, Muriel Ouaknine-Melki, présidente de l’Organisation juive européenne.

Craignant des représailles depuis le pogrom du 7 octobre, sa mère avait conseillé à la jeune fille de se faire discrète. La petite avait déjà perdu des amies à cause de la religion de ses parents.

Ce viol antisémite n’est pas un fait divers. C’est un fait de société qui illustre la peur croissante dans laquelle vivent des milliers de Juifs en France. Les actes antisémites recensés ont bondi de 300 % au premier trimestre de 2024, comparativement à la même période en 2023, année où ils étaient déjà en hausse.

Certains feront mine de s’en étonner, nombreux sont pourtant ceux qui nous avaient mis en garde. Cela va de Boulaem Sansal à Kamel Daoud, en passant par Smaïn Laacher et Georges Bensoussan, qui avait été poursuivi pour avoir affirmé que, dans nombre de familles influencées par l’islamisme, « l’antisémitisme, on le tète avec le lait de la mère ». Traîné devant les tribunaux, il sera relaxé en 2019 « de toute accusation de racisme et d’incitation à la haine ».

On pourra chipoter sur la formulation, reste que l’antisémitisme est consubstantiel à cet islamisme qui se répand en France. Nombre de familles juives fuient d’ailleurs les banlieues pour protéger leurs enfants ; certaines envisagent même de quitter le pays.

Qui aurait pu s’imaginer que 80 ans après la Seconde Guerre mondiale et 37 ans après les déclarations antisémites de Jean-Marie Le Pen, la France serait à nouveau déchirée par un tel débat ? À la différence près que cet antisémitisme est aujourd’hui associé à la gauche.

Depuis des mois, La France insoumise (LFI) refuse de qualifier le Hamas d’organisation « terroriste ». Un jour, son leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, accuse la première ministre d’origine juive, Élisabeth Borne, de défendre un « point de vue étranger ». Le lendemain, il reproche à la présidente de l’Assemblée, Yaël Braun-Pivet, elle aussi d’origine juive, de « camper à Tel-Aviv ». Selon lui, l’antisémitisme serait « résiduel en France ». Une déclaration qualifiée de « scandale » par le socialiste Raphaël Glucksmann, lui-même victime de tags antisémites.

Cette complaisance relève-t-elle d’une conviction profonde ou d’une simple stratégie électorale ? Chose certaine, depuis des mois, LFI a multiplié les signes en direction de l’électorat musulman où, selon un sondage de l’IFOP publié en 2020, 57 % des jeunes de 15 à 24 ans considèrent que la loi islamique devrait avoir préséance sur celle de la République.

Hier symboles de l’« Argent », les Juifs seraient-ils devenus celui du « Colonialisme », comme on dit dans le vocabulaire woke ? Ce ne serait pas la première fois qu’une partie de la gauche pactise avec l’antisémitisme, une attitude qu’à son époque, le social-démocrate August Bebel avait qualifiée de « socialisme des imbéciles ». Les exemples vont de Jean Jaurès, qui disait que « l’oeuvre de salubrité socialiste culmine dans l’extirpation de l’être juif », à l’Humanité, qui qualifia Léon Blum de « Shylock », en passant par Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, qui désignait « le Juif » comme « l’ennemi du genre humain » et voulait « abolir les synagogues ».

Un peu d’histoire permet de constater que personne n’a le monopole de la vertu. Elle permet aussi de relativiser cette affirmation pour le moins étonnante de l’avocat Arié Alimi et de l’historien Vincent Lemire, selon qui l’antisémitisme du Rassemblement national serait « ontologique » alors que celui de LFI ne serait que « contextuel ». L’histoire montre qu’il n’y a pas d’atavisme antisémite. Jaurès n’a-t-il pas finalement défendu Dreyfus ? L’écrivain Georges Bernanos, disciple de l’antisémite Drumont, n’a-t-il pas combattu courageusement le franquisme et le régime de Vichy ?

On comprend pourquoi, en refusant de participer à la grande manifestation unitaire contre l’antisémitisme du 12 novembre dernier, Emmanuel Macron a commis l’une des fautes les plus graves de son quinquennat. Quant à Jean-Luc Mélenchon, il n’a de cesse de flatter son électorat dans le sens du poil. « Certains discours politiques ont fait des Juifs des cibles légitimes », dit le président du Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France (CRIF), Yonathan Arfi, d’ailleurs traité d’« extrême droite » par Mélenchon. Selon une récente étude réalisée par l’IFOP, 35 % des jeunes de 18 à 24 ans estiment qu’il est justifié de s’en prendre à des juifs en raison de leur soutien à Israël.

Les parents de la jeune martyre de Courbevoie ont dénoncé avec raison un « mimétisme » sordide entre les actes perpétrés par les terroristes du Hamas et ce que leur fille a subi. Nul doute que ces événements pèseront sur les résultats de dimanche prochain.

Source: Chronique | La gauche et l’antisémitisme

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Korea’s multicultural demographic changes call for new youth support policies

2024/06/27 Leave a comment

Of interest:

As the number of preschoolers from multicultural families dwindles due to the low birthrate, calls grow for systemic support for youth, away from current multicultural policies that focus primarily on underage children.

Experts underscore the importance of bolstering bilingual education. Rather than specifically differentiating children with multicultural backgrounds, they advocate for a more inclusive approach that benefits multicultural children.

According to a new report from the Korean Education Statistics Service, released Sunday, which highlights the major trends and challenges in multicultural education through statistics, there were 12,526 multicultural births in 2022. This accounts for 5 percent of the 249,186 total births in Korea in the same year.

Multicultural births in the report refer to cases where at least one parent is foreign or a naturalized citizen.

Considering there were 22,908 multicultural births in 2012, the number has declined sharply by more than 10,000 births, or approximately 45.3 percent, over the past decade. During this period, the decline in multicultural births mirrored the overall decrease in domestic births.

The average age for marriage within multicultural families is rising, and fewer babies are being born to women under 30, according to the report.

Specifically, the proportion of multicultural couples marrying under 24 fell from 30.8 percent in 2012 to 17.4 percent in 2022. Conversely, marriages involving individuals over 30 increased from 44.4 percent to 58.6 percent over the same period.

Additionally, the percentage of multicultural babies born to mothers under 29 dropped significantly, from 61.8 percent in 2012 to 31.3 percent in 2022.

A notable demographic shift is expected within Korea’s multicultural population, with a decrease in preschoolers and a gradual increase in middle and high school students, as well as adults in their early 20s.

As of 2022, 89.7 percent of all multicultural students are in elementary and middle school. Looking ahead, the proportion of middle and high school students, along with youth aged 19 to 24, is projected to rise.

Mo Young-min, vice chairman for research at the Korean Education Development Institute and author of the report, emphasized the necessity of policy-level attention and establishing a support system for youth with multicultural backgrounds, pointing out that current multicultural policies focus primarily on young children.

According to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, it is expanding projects to provide fundamental education and career guidance, facilitating the smooth adaptation of children from multicultural families to school life.

Meanwhile, experts stress the need to prioritize bilingual education in support measures for children from multicultural families. They advocate for an approach that respects and incorporates the culture and language of their parents’ countries….

Source: Korea’s multicultural demographic changes call for new youth support policies

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Big majority of Canadian Gen Z, millennials support values-testing immigrants: poll

2024/06/26 Leave a comment

No easy approaches to value testing, ranging from defining the values, managing, implementing, monitoring and enforcing them. The valid general interest in common values generally breaks down when specifics are discussed beyond the general respect for the rule of law, the constitutional order and respect for others. And terminology becomes an issue: “barbaric cultural practices” versus stating which practices like FGM are against the law; one inflames, the other informs.:

Gen Z and millennials are split on whether Canada’s aggressive immigration targets are good for the country, and 70 per cent say the government should be ensuring new arrivals “share common Canadian values,” such as respect for minority groups, according to a new Postmedia-Leger poll.

Since 2021, Canada has been aiming for an intake of 500,000 new Canadians each year and the government plans to keep this steady until 2026. But only 11 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 39 say this is overall a good thing, while 34 per cent say it is generally good for the country but has also created some problems.

Twenty per cent say it has created more problems than benefits, while 19 per cent say it is overall a bad thing. Atlantic Canadians are more likely to be skeptical of the higher immigration levels, while people in B.C., and the Prairies are more likely to favour it.

“The attitudes are shifting a little bit with respect to immigration. I think it’s actually becoming a little easier for people to start to raise the concern about immigration, because it’s not necessarily about the people coming into the country, but it’s the country’s ability to support the people coming in,” said Leger vice-president Andrew Enns.

Women are more likely to say the current immigration levels are generally good for Canada, at 38 per cent, compared to 31 per cent for men. Men are more likely to say it has created more problems than benefits, at 24 per cent, compared to 17 per cent for women.

Canadians are seeing the effects of the government’s intentional increase of permanent residents, but also a largely unanticipated cohort of millions of temporary immigrants who arrived through student visas and the temporary worker program, said Mikal Skuterud, a labour economist at the University of Waterloo.

“I think most Canadians understand that the absorptive capacity may be pushed a bit. We might be pushing up against it too much in the past couple of years. And there’s concerns around that,” said Skuterud….

Source: Big majority of Canadian Gen Z, millennials support values-testing immigrants: poll

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism, Polling Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →