Pas assez de femmes et de minorités à la SQ

2015/07/31 Leave a comment

All police forces struggle with recruitment and retention of women and visible minorities. What surprised me is that data on police force diversity is not automatically made public, and that one has to request it directly from most respective forces (RCMP is required by law to file a report, La Sûreté is one of the few that do publish their data Effectifs et ressources):

La Sûreté du Québec devrait engager plus de femmes, d’autochtones et de membres des minorités visibles et ethniques, selon la Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse. L’organisme croit que la SQ n’en a tout simplement pas fait une priorité par le passé.

Dans un rapport publié hier, la Commission, qui veille à l’application de la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne, juge que la SQ «n’a pas mis en place des mesures raisonnables pour corriger la sous-représentation des membres de ces groupes». Ces mesures sont régies par la Loi sur l’accès à l’égalité en emploi dans les organismes publics, que la Commission est chargée de faire respecter.

«Au cours de la période étudiée – 2007-2013 -, les effectifs policiers ont augmenté de 10%, ce qui aurait normalement dû permettre l’embauche et l’avancement des membres de tous les groupes visés par la loi», a indiqué par voie de communiqué le président Jacques Frémont.

L’organisme pense qu’il faudrait tripler le nombre de femmes au sein du personnel-cadre «intermédiaire», tout en convenant que la situation risque de se détériorer au cours des prochaines années parce que de moins en moins de candidatures féminines sont retenues par le corps policier.

Pas assez de femmes et de minorités à la SQ | Jasmin Lavoie | Actualités.

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What Does Islam Say About Being Gay? – The New York Times

2015/07/31 Leave a comment

Mustafa Akyol on interpretations of what Islam says on being gay:

The real Islamic basis for punishing homosexuality is the hadiths, or sayings, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. (The same is true for punishments on apostasy, heresy, impiety, or “insults” of Islam: None come from the Quran; all are from certain hadiths.) But the hadiths were written down almost two centuries after the prophet lived, and their authenticity has been repeatedly questioned — as early as the ninth century by the scholar Imam Nesai — and they can be questioned anew today. Moreover, there is no record of the prophet actually having anyone punished for homosexuality.

Such jurisprudential facts might help Muslims today to develop a more tolerant attitude toward gays, as some progressive Islamic thinkers in Turkey, such as Ihsan Eliacik, are encouraging. What is condemned in the story of Lot is not sexual orientation, according to Mr. Eliacik, but sexual aggression. People’s private lives are their own business, he argues, whereas the public Muslim stance should be to defend gays when they are persecuted or discriminated against — because Islam stands with the downtrodden.

It is also worth recalling that the Ottoman Caliphate, which ruled the Sunni Muslim world for centuries and which the current Turkish government claims to emulate, was much more open-minded on this issue. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire had an extensive literature of homosexual romance, and an accepted social category of transvestites. The Ottoman sultans, arguably, were social liberals compared with the contemporary Islamists of Turkey, let alone the Arab World.

Despite such arguments, the majority of Muslims are likely to keep seeing homosexuality as something sinful, if public opinion polls are any indication. Yet those Muslims who insist on condemning gays should recall that according to Islam, there are many sins, including arrogance, which the Quran treats as among the gravest moral transgressions. For Turks and other Muslims, it could be our own escape from the sin of arrogance to stop stigmatizing others for their behavior and focus instead on refining ourselves.

What Does Islam Say About Being Gay? – The New York Times.

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Inequality may be complex, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make sense of it

2015/07/30 Leave a comment

As always, worth reading.

MilesCorak's avatarEconomics for public policy

The Fraser Institute has weighed in on the income inequality debate with a report called “Income inequality: measurement sensitivities” that reviews the statistical measurement of income inequality in Canada.

The report quite rightly points out that there are many nuances in the measurement of income, and income inequality, and that the results vary substantially depending upon how economists and statisticians deal with them. Is income measured by earnings, or by total income that includes not just business and investment income but also government transfers? Should it be measured before or after taxes? And should we be looking at total family income or try to represent this as individual income by accounting for family size?

The analysis is carefully done and clearly presented, and though it covers ground that is pretty well standard for many economists working in this area, it helps to clarify the issues for a broader…

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Should Palestinians Visit Nazi Concentration Camps? – The Daily Beast

2015/07/30 Leave a comment

More on Prof. Mohammed Dajani’s efforts to educate Palestinian youth on the Holocaust (see earlier Mid-East: The knowledge constituency versus the ignorance lobby):

“Palestinians should not compare the Nakba with the Holocaust,” he says. “While the Holocaust was the Final Solution for the Jewish people, the Nakba was not the Final Solution for the Palestinian people. It wouldn’t have been possible for Jews to sit with Nazis and reach an agreement. Within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is possible for Palestinians and Israelis to reach a comprehensive, just settlement that will accommodate both peoples. That’s why I think that teaching about the Holocaust is important. For Palestinians to realize that there is hope, and that in negotiation the path to peace lies.”

At the same time, he is deeply uncomfortable with Jews using the Holocaust “to rationalize, for us [Palestinians], why they had to deport us from our homes in order for them to come and live in them. It doesn’t mean,” he insists, “that if we learn about the Holocaust we will not demand our rights, or [will] lose our national identity.”

But this nuanced message was lost on those who stirred up controversy following the trip. Students at Al Quds University – where Dajani was the head of the American Studies Department and library director – boycotted him, claiming that he was “trying to sell Palestinians the Zionist story,” or was “collaborating with the Israelis to undermine Palestinian nationalism.” Dajani knew to take things seriously when he started receiving threatening letters at his office.

His students also faced negative responses to the trip, as well. However, “many of them were courageous,” Dajani says proudly, “to stand up and say, ‘We went to learn, and we learned a lot.’”

Should Palestinians Visit Nazi Concentration Camps? – The Daily Beast.

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Denmark Bans Kosher and Halal Animal Slaughter

2015/07/30 5 Comments

Balance between animal “rights” and human religious rights. But one would need to know how Denmark treats all farm animals to know whether this is consistent or targeted:

Denmark enacted a sweeping ban on the religious slaughter of animals Monday, prompting a furious backlash from Jewish and Muslim community representatives.

The ban, which requires slaughterhouse workers to stun animals before killing them, will now extend to religious communities that were previously afforded an exemption. “Animal rights come before religion,” Danish minister for agriculture and food Dan Jørgensen told Denmark’s TV2.

Activists with Danish Halal called the restriction a “clear interference in religious freedom,” the Independent reports, while Israeli chief rabbi David Lau slammed the law as “a serious and severe blow to the Jewish faith and to the Jews of Denmark,” according to Times of Israel.

Both observant Jews, under kashrut laws and Muslims, under halal laws, will not eat meat unless the animal has been killed with a single slice to the neck, with the intention to minimize its pain.

Denmark Bans Kosher and Halal Animal Slaughter

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Jewish Students Feel Wide Anti-Semitism, Online Study Says

2015/07/30 Leave a comment

US Antisemitism campuses - BrandeisInteresting studies and charts:

According to the Brandeis University study released Tuesday, a few schools, among them Canadian universities and schools in the California state system, have “particularly high levels of hostility toward Jews or Israel.”

The online survey of over 3,000 North American college students who have applied for a Birthright Israel trip — but have not yet taken the 10-day journey — found that one-third of respondents reported having been verbally harassed during the past year because they were Jewish. Nearly three-quarters said they had been exposed to at least one of six anti-Semitic statements, including the claims that Jews have too much power and that Israelis behave “like Nazis” toward the Palestinians.

More than one-quarter of respondents described hostility toward Israel by their campus peers as a “fairly” or “very big” problem, while nearly 15 percent reported the same level of hostility toward Jews.

Jewish Students Feel Wide Anti-Semitism, Online Study Says – Breaking News – Forward.com.

Antisemitism and the College Campus – Brandeis University

2014 Anti-Semitism Report – Jewish Virtual Library

Brandeis - Israel

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Antiracism, Our Flawed New Religion: McWhorter

2015/07/29 Leave a comment

John McWhorter’s take on antiracism as a religion, and the risk this holds with respect to more open conversations:

Yet Antiracism as religion has its downsides. It encourages an idea that racism in its various guises must be behind anything bad for black people, which is massively oversimplified in 2015. For example, it is thrilling to see the fierce, relentless patrolling, assisted by social media, that the young black activists covered in a recent New York Times Magazine piece have been doing to call attention to cops’ abuse of black people. That problem is real and must be fixed, as I have written about frequently, often to the irritation of the Right. However, imagine if there were a squadron of young black people just as bright, angry and relentless devoted to smoking out the bad apples in poor black neighborhoods once and for all, in alliance with the police forces often dedicated to exactly that? I fear we’ll never see it—Antiracism creed forces attention to the rogue cops regardless of whether they are the main problem.

The fact is that Antiracism, as a religion, pollutes our race dialogue as much as any lack of understanding by white people of their Privilege. For example, the good Antiracist supports black claims that standardized tests are “racist” in that black people don’t do as well on them as other students. But Antiracism also encourages us to ask why, oh why black people are suspected of being less intelligent than others—despite this take on the tests, and aspiring firefighters and even teachers making news with similar claims that tough tests are “racist.” Now, to say that if black people can’t be expected to take tests then they must not be as smart is, under Antiracism, blasphemous—one is not to ask too many questions. The idea of a massive effort—as concentrated as the people battling cop abuse against black people—to get black kids practice in taking standardized tests doesn’t come up, because the scripture turns our heads in other directions.

And too often, Antiracism doctrine loses sight of what actually helps black people. Ritual “acknowledgment” of White Privilege is, ultimately, for white people to feel less guilty. Social change hardly requires such self-flagellation by the ruling class. Similarly, black America needs no grand, magic End of Days in order to succeed. A compact program of on-the-ground policy changes could do vastly more than articulate yearnings for a hypothetical psychological revolution among whites that no one seriously imagines could ever happen in life as we know it.

Antiracism as a religion, despite its good intentions, distracts us from activism in favor of a kind of charismatic passivism. One is to think, to worship, to foster humility, to conceive of our lives as mere rehearsal for a glorious finale, and to encourage others to do the same. This kind of thinking may have its place in a human society. But helping black people succeed in the only real world we will ever know is not that place.

Real people are having real problems, and educated white America has been taught that what we need from them is willfully incurious, self-flagellating piety, of a kind that has helped no group in human history. Naciremian Antiracism has its good points, but it is hopefully a transitional stage along the way to something more genuinely progressive.

Antiracism, Our Flawed New Religion – The Daily Beast.

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Building a more inclusive society requires a conversation about inequality: Corak

2015/07/29 Leave a comment

Good thoughtful discussion on building an inclusive society by Miles Corak. One of my favourite parts:

“Social inclusion” is a slippery term, and it certainly does not have a distinct meaning in the social sciences in a way that at least I, as an economist,  would feel comfortable drawing implications for public policy.

It helps me to reflect on another term that is sometimes also used to frame public policy: “assimilation”.

For example, assimilation is used in some countries to refer to policies addressed to immigrants. It frames policy discourse in a way that leads to a focus on the shortcomings of migrants. There is a sense of a clear and distinct “mainstream” to society, or to the economy, and migrants are lacking in the skills, language, or even in the attitudes, religion, and culture necessary to fit into this mainstream. They need to change.

This is overtly clear in the way that some extreme groups argue against the very presence of migrants, or accommodations toward them. If this perspective rubs many of us the wrong way it is because at some level we recoil from the underlying assumption of “assimilation”: that the mainstream is clear, fixed, socially preferred; that the task for groups defined as the “other”—be they migrants, those with low-income or without work, those with physical or mental disabilities, or those of colour—is to adjust, to adapt, to assimilate, and indeed to ultimately identify with that mainstream.

It surely does not take much second thought to recognize that barriers to assimilation may be structural, reflecting overt discrimination in access to fundamental resources that are the basis for full participation in society: access to education, health care, income security, and even to jobs for which migrants may well be perfectly qualified but never hired because of skin colour, accent, or simply the spelling of their last names.

In other words, if perspectives like this rub many of us the wrong way it is because we believe there is a reciprocal obligation, something to be negotiated, something reflecting a partnership in the building of society in which all parties are treated with equal respect, and are in turn changed by the relationship.

This has to be at the core of what we mean by “inclusion” if it is to be a helpful framework. Inclusion embodies the idea that identity is something to be continually re-negotiated as successive waves of minority groups enter into conversation with the majority.

So in this way conversation is not just an excellent metaphor for the meaning of inclusion, it is also a vital mechanism to achieve it. It is through conversation that we can respectfully negotiate the terms of a partnership, but at the same time we appreciate conversation for its own sake, are not threatened or dissatisfied by the fact that it is open-ended, indeed this is what reassures and enriches.

But if building an inclusive society through conversation is to be sincere and productive, it has to be done between partners who demonstrate mutual respect, and be capable of freely engaging; partners with a clear sense of others, but also of themselves. It seems to me that this sort of capacity or capability is also at the core of what we mean by “inclusion”.

Building a more inclusive society requires a conversation about inequality | Economics for public policy.

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Ottawa Street check race data ‘cries out’ for an explanation: lawyer

2015/07/29 Leave a comment

Ottawa’s carding data with similar over-representation of Blacks and Middle Easterners as elsewhere, with analysis yet to come:

Asked if that over-representation concerns the service, Chief Charles Bordeleau said the data were “very raw” and absent important information that would put the numbers into perspective.

“There hasn’t been any analysis whatsoever or any context behind the numbers,” Bordeleau said.

Yet in his public address to the board, defence lawyer Leo Russomanno said those figures and what they suggest demand analysis.

“It should be concerning to this committee … that in a population where only 5.7 per cent is black, 20 per cent of those being street-checked, according to the statistics being provided, are black,” Russomanno said. “In a population of less than five per cent described as being Middle Eastern, 14 per cent of those that fit that description are being stopped in street checks.

“Now, there may be another explanation for this, but in my view it cries out for an explanation.”

Russomanno urged the board to seek a formal legal opinion on the legality of street checks. He wants the board to participate in making the process lawful, he said.

“Individuals involved in street checks have a right choose whether to co-operate with police or not.”

Street check race data ‘cries out’ for an explanation: lawyer | Ottawa Citizen.

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The Hungarian far-right and Islam

2015/07/29 Leave a comment

Interesting, and conclusion applicable to other situations:

This is a major change in perceptions and narratives on the Hungarian right, and Hungarian imam Ahmed Miklós Kovács has picked up on it as well. Mr. Kovács is a leader within Budapest’s Muslim community and he published a piece on his Facebook profile a few days ago, in which he commented on this dramatic shift:

“We have arrived at a turning point. A few years ago, we Muslims had no problems with the so-called radical right in Hungary, otherwise known as the national side, or the far right, and with its organizations, such as the Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement (HVIM), the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIÉP), Jobbik, the Hungarian Guard, etc. We thought that they were not against us, that they will leave Muslims alone.  What’s more, we thought that many of them even sympathized with us. Some of them even converted to Islam and some in our own circles supported them in elections. In 2010, many of us voted for Jobbik and at the time Gábor Vona referred to Islam as the last bastion of humanity and civilization. But today, all of this has changed drastically. We have now become their main enemy. We have now replaced the Jews and the Gypsies, as prime  targets of their hate.”

Mr. Kovács suggested that Hungarian Muslims feel abandoned, as the same civil rights groups that stand up for Roma rights or speak out against antisemitism, don’t seem interested in protesting Islamophobia. He then proceeded to declare than supporting Jobbik, the Hungarian Guard, HVIM or any other far right movement in Hungary is considered a “haram,” or a deeply sinful, forbidden act for all Muslims. One reader who responded to Mr. Kovács under the name Nour El Huda Boudjaoui, seemed exasperated that Jobbik, which only two years ago had been “a great Arabist” in its outlook, has changed so much.

There is somewhat of a lesson to be learned in all of this. Just because a virulently racist group doesn’t attack one specific demographic (due to political considerations), does not mean that this demographic should believe that they are somehow forever immune to the hate and prejudice espoused by these extremists. Nor does it mean that just because one’s own group is not being attacked, one should not show solidarity with those who are targets, from different cultural, religious or ethnic groups.

The Hungarian far-right and Islam.

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