Court clears way for Zunera Ishaq to become a Canadian citizen with her face covered by a niqab

2015/09/17 Leave a comment

Weird legal strategy, suggesting this was a wedge-issue all along (substantively, I agree with the Government that the wearing of a niqab at a citizenship ceremony is inappropriate):

The Harper government’s rule banning face coverings at such ceremonies was earlier found unlawful by the Federal Court.

Justice Department lawyer Peter Southey argued unsuccessfully that the lower court justice made errors in his original decision to overturn the ban.

Appeal Justice Mary Gleason said the court had no reason to interfere with the earlier ruling.
The ban on face coverings sparked a bitter debate in the House of Commons when it was first announced.

At Tuesday’s half-day hearing in Ottawa, a Justice Department lawyer told court that the government never meant to make it mandatory for women to remove their face coverings for citizenship ceremonies — a position that left both the judge and Ishaq’s lawyers scratching their heads.

The admission appeared to be a climb down from the Conservative government’s past position on the issue.

The controversial edict was a regulation that had no actual force in law, Justice Department lawyer Peter Southey told a Federal Court of Appeal hearing.

“It indicates a desire in the strongest possible language,” Southey said — an argument that appeared to come as a surprise to Justice Johanne Trudel.

“I cannot see how this is not mandatory,” Trudel said during the hearing.

Southey later told the court that the immigration minister was conceding that he “could not impose a mandatory rule in a guideline” for the purposes of this appeal.

Lorne Waldman, the lawyer for the woman at the centre of the case, dismissed Southey’s argument, saying everyone from former immigration minister Jason Kenney , his successor Chris Alexander and even Prime Minister Stephen Harper have said in public they see it as a mandatory policy.

Reading from internal government emails, Waldman told court there was not “one iota of discretion” within the policy.

“Everything says mandatory, no discretion — that’s the facts of the case.”

The controversial case focuses on whether a Muslim woman should be required to remove her face covering to take the oath of citizenship.

Outside court, Ishaq questioned the federal government’s new line.

“If it’s not mandatory I would simply say, why they are fighting for it? Just let me go,” she said.
“I can’t even make sense of the statement — what the lawyer said about it that it’s not mandatory. If it’s not mandatory, so why that all this fuss is for?”

 The Government has announced that it plans an appeal to the Supreme Court and we will see whether it maintains the same (baffling) legal arguments or comes up with stronger ones. Or whether this is simply an electoral ploy.

Filed under Multiculturalism

Growing up Muslim: an individual story, a universal tale – Zarqa Nawaz

2015/09/17 Leave a comment

Gender equality, Islam and Canada:

I was always secure in the feeling that Canada was home and I was Canadian. That security gave me time to look into the practices of my community with a critical lens. When the National Film Board approached me to make a documentary, I chose to focus on patriarchy and the social exclusion of women in mosques. In 2005, Me and the Mosque was released. For me, Islam was never the problem – it was men and how they interpreted faith to their own advantage. I wondered what would happen to a mosque if it were run by an imam that came from a culture committed to gender equity, such as Canada. That was the question I explored in Little Mosque on the Prairie.

At first, the show wasn’t received well by the Muslim community. It was considered offensive and insulting to Islam. I was a pariah for a long time and I still bump into people who say I’ve given a bad impression of Muslims.

But I’ve seen those attitudes change toward me. The community no longer sees me as someone who is mocking the faith, but as someone who genuinely loves Islam but wants a critical dialogue about some of the cultural practices that have seeped in over the centuries. I am considered one of the few Muslims in the world who have successfully bridged the worlds of faith and comedy. But I would never have been able to do this had I lived anywhere else in the world.

In Pakistan, I would have been killed by now; in Europe, I would have been too broken by xenophobia and rejection to even try; the Islamophobic, post-Sept. 11, 2001, world of the United States would have stopped me cold. It was only Canada, where I truly felt I belonged and was cherished as a Muslim, where I could safely poke fun at both my Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.

My faith is different from that of my parents; we are forged by our environments and circumstances, which are radically different. And my children are different from me still. But we are all Canadian and have changed Canada, and Canada has changed us, all for the better.

 Source: Growing up Muslim: an individual story, a universal tale – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

Opinion: Let’s welcome refugees generously, but abandon multiculturalism: Julius Grey

2015/09/17 Leave a comment

I don’t think Grey understands multiculturalism in Canada – it is not deep, based on collective or group rights, but shallow, based on individual rights and within the overall constitutional and legal framework and that provides accommodation within that context, precisely as he describes his ideal:

This means that generosity and hospitality are not only morally right, but are also the prudent and most advantageous attitudes to take. Certainly, the flow must be regulated so that the health and education systems of home countries are not overwhelmed and the immigrants are integrated smoothly and fairly. Planning is needed at an international level to distribute the new arrivals and to determine the rate of movement. However, the building of walls and the use of military force will cause suffering and achieve nothing.

When Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Viking and Norman French created the English and Gauls, Latins and Germanic Franks created the French, the results were permanent and irrevocable because the constituent groups were fused. Those who fear multiculturalism are not entirely wrong. A better model, especially with vast movements like the present one, is complete integration and inter-marriage with a new culture evolving that contains contributions from all. If groups merely coexist side by side, sooner or later a crisis develops and is exploited by demagogues to breed hate.

When the coming great migration occurs — and the current crisis is only the tip of the iceberg — it will be necessary for the host state to become totally neutral on religious questions, but also to provide a single system of schools, hospitals and social services for all. Individual accommodation that encourages attendance at public institutions is a positive thing, but collective or institutional accommodation is not.

Further, the host countries should adopt laws similar to Quebec’s in order to maintain a common language for all, while encouraging knowledge of other languages. The abandonment of multiculturalism will assuage fears that lead people to support anti-immigrant parties and will create a solidarity around social issues that is often absent in divided societies. It will also encourage individual autonomy and freedom, since everyone will have a different shade of skin colour and an individual family history, free from dogma and from pressure to live in any particular way or to marry any prescribed type of person.

Freedom and social justice both depend on our ability to create a society which has, on the one hand, citizens of myriad origins and, on the other, no barriers between them.

Source: Opinion: Let’s welcome refugees generously, but abandon multiculturalism | Montreal Gazette

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Religious Fundamentalism: A Side Effect of Lazy Brains? – The Daily Beast

2015/09/16 Leave a comment

The neuroscience of belief and how we are more likely to believe than doubt:

Brain activation, overall, was much greater and persisted longer during states of disbelief. This is important because neuroscience has long shown that  greater brain activity requires more mental resources, of which there is a limited supply. A cognitive process that demands little mental resources, such as believing, is less work for the brain and therefore favored. This concept was summed up nicely in a 2015 NewScientist cover story on the science of beliefs, which stated, “Harris’ results were widely interpreted as further confirmation that the default state of the human brain is to accept. Belief comes easily; doubt takes effort.”

This finding has great implications for understanding the factors involved in human behavior and decision-making. We all know that our beliefs strongly guide our actions and shape our moral and political attitudes. Since the brain tends to accept ideas rather than reject them, those raised in cultures that promote religious indoctrination of children at a very early age—long before they are taught science, if taught science at all—are more susceptible to holding fundamentalist beliefs later in life.

…The hard truth of the matter is that for the human mind, believing is more of a reflex than a conscious, careful, and methodical action. Rather than looming over this somewhat disconcerting fact, we should use this information to change the conditions that allow fundamentalist beliefs and dangerous ideologies to flourish. We may not yet be able to go into the brain and change it to fit what needs to be learned, but we can certainly change what needs to be learned to fit the brain.

The same process is likely with respect to political partisans of whatever stripe.

Source: Religious Fundamentalism: A Side Effect of Lazy Brains? – The Daily Beast

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ICYMI: Stephen Harper pledges $10M to research terrorism, radicalization

2015/09/16 Leave a comment

Good investment and one that any government should maintain and possibly strengthen:

On the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is committing new money to research terrorism and radicalization.

Harper said Friday that a Tory government would provide $10 million over five years to the Kanishka Project, an initiative — established in 2011 and named in recognition of the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 331 people — to better understand radicalization and effective ways to prevent attacks.

The Kanishka Project is administered through Public Safety Canada and has funded research by academics both in Canada and abroad. For example, in October 2014 the government put out a call soliciting research on how jihadists use the internet, while in July it was announced that the project would provide $170,000 over two years to an Australian sociologist studying why some Canadians convert to Islam.

Source: Stephen Harper pledges $10M to research terrorism, radicalization – Politics – CBC News

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with , ,

Québec fait le jeu des islamistes, prévient Houda-Pépin

2015/09/16 Leave a comment

Finding the balance amidst concerns about restricting legitimate discourse:

Le gouvernement Couillard fait le jeu des islamistes avec son projet de loi sur le discours haineux, a prévenu l’ancienne députée libérale Fatima Houda-Pepin lundi.

Selon l’ex-députée de La Pinière, le projet de loi 59 donnerait une protection juridique aux islamistes. D’une part, il ne comprend aucune disposition particulière pour contrer leur discours politique et religieux. De l’autre, il leur permet de dénoncer ceux qui les critiquent à la Commission des droits de la personne.

«Si le projet de loi 59 avait été en vigueur en 2005, au moment où j’ai lutté contre la charia, je n’aurais pas pu le faire, a-t-elle dit. J’aurais été attaquée et condamnée pour islamophobie par ces groupes.»

Mme Houda-Pepin témoignait devant la commission parlementaire chargée d’étudier le projet, qui a été présenté par le gouvernement libéral au printemps dans le cadre d’un vaste plan de lutte à la radicalisation.

Selon elle, Québec devrait créer un centre de recherche sur l’intégrisme afin de contrer la menace islamiste.

La ministre de la Justice, Stéphanie Vallée, a assuré que son initiative n’empêchera personne de critiquer des extrémistes religieux.

«Ça n’empêche pas de dénoncer, a-t-elle assuré au terme de la journée. L’objectif, c’est d’empêcher des propos qui entraîneraient une haine de l’autre en raison de son signe distinctif, parce que c’est une femme ou un homosexuel.»

Le projet de loi pourrait aussi bien cibler les propos d’un imam extrémiste que d’un militant néonazi, a illustré la ministre Vallée.

Source: Québec fait le jeu des islamistes, prévient Houda-Pépin | MARTIN CROTEAU | Politique québécoise

Filed under Multiculturalism

Emma Teitel on diversity in kids’ TV

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

On greater depth of diversity, rather than simply colour:

What makes these shows revolutionary [Make it Pop, Game Shakers, Project Mc2], in a sense, is not their basic attempts at racial and gender diversity, but their willingness to upend the conventional way in which diversity is portrayed. TV shows and movies are rife with well-intentioned tokenism: for example, the perfectly diverse friend group comprised of 1.5 Asian people and/or someone in a wheelchair, the cheerleading squad with approximately 2.5 black members, the law firm with 1.5 gays and the police force with one scrappy-as-hell woman. We’ve seen these tropes before and welcome as they may be in a homogenous entertainment landscape, it is endlessly refreshing to watch shows—kids shows in particular—that don’t cleave to the “one is enough” standard. There is power in representation. But there may be greater power in numbers.

Source: Emma Teitel on diversity in kids’ TV – Macleans.ca

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Asking why people become terrorists is natural, but it’s better to recognize the signs and act, new book says

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

Interview with Phil Gurski, author of The Threat From Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-Inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West:

During the last two years of Gurski’s career, he spoke to many community groups.

“In most cases what really impressed me was how engaged people were,” he said. “They know it’s happening in their midst, they’re a little bit confused about it.”

He said while people generally want to help, they’re not always sure what to do and may have misconceptions about extremism. The “solutions” they propose often include jobs, education, integration, mental health funding, addressing underlying grievances and developing “a true understanding of Islam.”

But he calls those unhelpful against radicalization.Employment, education and integration “do not correlate with lower levels of radicalization,” he writes. Meanwhile, trying to resolve grievances only creates more grievances and the “oft-pronounced view that extremists have a poor grasp of Islam and only need to be nudged (or coerced) back to the true path is overly optimistic.

”Extremists believe they have found the true essence of faith, he writes, adding, “what is ‘true’ religion, anyway? Does any one person or body have a monopoly on religious interpretation?”

He supports early intervention programs run by people with the proper training. But he cautions there are times police will have to investigate and make arrests. He also wants Canadians to know that those threatening to attack Canada in ISIL videos are not necessarily the monsters we make them out to be.

In fact, they tend to be fairly ordinary.“They are us,” he writes.

Source: Asking why people become terrorists is natural, but it’s better to recognize the signs and act, new book says

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with ,

Filmmaker Parvez Sharma on Islam, homosexuality and the new ‘A Sinner in Mecca’ – LA Times

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

Sounds like an interesting film given his reflections in this interview:

Q: The hajj is a difficult journey for most Muslims, both physically and spiritually. What compelled you to document yours?

A: The purpose of this film is to mount an open challenge to the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. For me, it’s not a film about Islam and homosexuality. I’ve done that before.

I think the export of Wahhabism has been the biggest Saudi project for the last century, and they have transferred it to every corner of the Muslim world. Communities have become increasingly conservative. The horrific ideology of ISIS and Al Qaeda would not exist without the Saudi Wahhabi doctrine. This is what they’re teaching children in schools. This is at the root of all the problems in the Muslim world, in my humble opinion.

Q: Your film features footage that someone else sent you of a man being executed by Saudi authorities allegedly for being homosexual. It’s a type of horror we associate with terror groups. Was outing this type of barbarism your point?

A: Yes. It’s ridiculous that in the 21st century, they’re allowed to carry out beheadings on a routine basis. It’s amazing the rest of the world does not say anything.

Q: You’d already openly identified yourself as gay in your previous documentary, yet the Saudi government granted you a visa to enter the kingdom for hajj.

A: I never thought the Saudis would give me a visa. As you learn in the film, I go on the hajj with a Shia group, which I do deliberately [to conceal my identity], even though I’m Sunni.

I think I slipped through the cracks because they were issuing millions of visas at the time. If they had been looking, it wouldn’t have been hard for the Saudis to know who I am.

Q: Most Muslims learn early on that the hajj is at the heart of affirming your faith. Did you feel conflicted since it was a religious journey, but you were also making a film?

A: For me, it’s the toughest journey I’ve taken in my entire life. It’s clear I’m going as a pilgrim, but there’s also the filmmaker half of my brain telling me there’s no way you’re not going to document the most important journey of your life.

Q: Your religious self wonders if you’re doing the right thing. Does it take away from being completely devout if you are also constantly filming? I had to deal with that conflict.

I felt I came out much stronger from the experience and that I made the hajj for thousands of gay Muslims who are probably too afraid to go. It was an enormous task to take on, but I came out the other end a better Muslim.

Q: Some might assume you’d come out of a journey through this very conservative region, and its strain of Islam, denouncing your religion.

A: Islam may have turned its back on me, but Islam is also who I am. It’s very hard to cut off your right hand and say I’ll only function with my left hand from now on.

Faith sits together with every part of my being, and I don’t know any other way to be than Muslim.

Q: “A Sinner in Mecca” documents the good — the powerful experience of being at the Grand Mosque and actually touching the Kaaba — and the bad, which is the dictates of Wahhabism, the commercialization of hajj and the class system that exists, even during the pilgrimage.

A: It’s a complex experience. I needed to be very honest with what is good and bad. I’m in the business of truth-telling.

There have been a couple of films the Saudis have commissioned about the hajj. I call them junket films because the reporters were chosen by them and led by Saudi minders from the Information Ministry.

Source: Filmmaker Parvez Sharma on Islam, homosexuality and the new ‘A Sinner in Mecca’ – LA Times

Filed under Multiculturalism

ICYMI: French new wave: A cultural shift for Toronto as ‘invisible francophones’ settle in

2015/09/12 Leave a comment

Less under the radar:

Every year roughly 1,000 French-speaking immigrants settle in Toronto, with the occasional spike – after the 2011 earthquake in Haiti, for example. Many more speak some English and French in addition to their own dialects, such as many newcomers from Congo, said Réjean Sirois, director of the Toronto-area French Catholic board.

It wasn’t clear just how many of these polyglots – using the same logic as scores of Canadian-born parents – would want their children to get an edge through fluent bilingualism, he said.

“They come here and they have to learn both languages, but they recognize that if they go in a French school, they will learn French because outside … everything is in English and they will learn it [anyway],” he said.

Nearly 50,000 Quebec residents (both francophone and anglophone) moved to Ontario between 2006 and 2011, according to census data. On top of that are the native-born Franco-Ontarians, whose numbers are difficult to pinpoint precisely.

After moving to Toronto, francophones often expect to live in English, especially if they marry an English speaker, Mr. Sirois said. They may not realize how much things can change when they ask for education in French. In the town of Collingwood, Ont., northwest of Barrie, a group of parents presented trustees of the regional French Catholic board with lists of local francophone families.

“Parents came to the school board and said, ‘Hey, there’s a lot of francophones there,’” Mr. Sirois said. “When you look at the statistics, at Statscan, you didn’t find that there were a lot of French people there.”

Source: French new wave: A cultural shift for Toronto as ‘invisible francophones’ settle in – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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