Lewis: The Left Needs to Handle Its Antisemitism Problem—NOW

2024/04/25 Leave a comment

Yes:

In recent days, we have witnessed chaos on and around the Columbia University campus, as threats against Jewish students have created an intolerable and combustible atmosphere.

A woman attempting to hide her identity held up a sign with an arrow pointing toward pro-Israel students that read “Al-Qasam’s Next Target,” a reference to Hamas’ military wing. Other protesters told students, “Go back to Europe. Go back to Poland.”

Another protester shouted, “The 7th of October is going to be every day for you,” in reference to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Others sang a chant, which included the words, “We support Hamas’ fight!” and “Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!” An Arab-Israeli journalist was allegedly assaulted by agitators. These are just a few of the alleged threats and assaults that have been documented on or near this campus.

While protests of all kinds are often marred by fringe actors—doing and saying terrible things that don’t represent the views of the larger group—it’s difficult to watch the videos and not conclude that there is blatant antisemitism at play among at least some of these pro-Palestinian protesters. Even if they’re a minority of the larger movement, what we’re seeing on and around the campus of one of the most hallowed institutions of higher education in America are not merely peaceful calls for a ceasefire or more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

There’s rank antisemitism, full stop, and it needs to be dealt with immediately.

One obvious step is for prominent Americans who have advocated for Palestinians in Gaza to forcefully condemn this behavior. Today.

If you are a prominent progressive influencer, pundit, or elected official (looking at you, Squad members), this is the time for you to go on the record and say that the antisemitic “fringe” of this movement—ostensibly in support of Palestinian rights and an end to the war in Gaza—does not speak for the larger group.

As it happens, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)—an outspoken critic of Israel whose daughter was one of the students arrested last week at Columbia—doesn’t seem too interested in rooting out the bigots that share her passion for the cause. Frankly, she’s not even interested in admitting they exist.

Rep. Omar on Monday tweeted, “Throughout history, protests were co-opted and made to look bad so police and public leaders would shut them down. That’s what we are seeing now at Columbia University. The Columbia protesters have made clear their demands and want their school not to be complacent in the ongoing Genocide in Gaza. Public officials and media making this about anything else are inflaming the situation and need to bring calmness and sanity back.”

That’s a lot of words to perform a Jedi Mind Trick: “These aren’t the antisemites you’re looking for.” (By contrast, Columbia Law Students for Palestine, to their credit, condemned the antisemitic incidents.)

Trust me when I say this matters. When racists on the right voiced repugnant ideas, some of us on the center-right stood up and condemned it. We did so because it was morally correct and because we hoped to prevent evil actors from co-opting and discrediting the conservative cause. Sadly, it was too little, too late.

The good news for mainstream Democrats is that these radical attitudes have not yet seized control of your political party. President Joe Biden, for example, has condemned the protests. There is still time to do the right thing.

But take it from me, parties can be hijacked more quickly than you can imagine. In four short years, the GOP went from Mitt Romney as the standard bearer to Donald Trump. You’ve got to identify it and uproot the cancer before it metastasizes. Because once it spreads, it’s too late.

If you’re still not sure this is a hill to die on, just imagine what you would think if such vicious antisemitism was coming from the right instead of the left. (Remember Charlottesville?)

Yes, there are some people who are looking to grab a short, out-of-context viral clip to make your entire movement look bad. Yes, some of these videos show events that happened on Columbia’s campus, while some took place outside the campus on a public street, where non-students were among the protesters.

But there are more than a few “bad apples” to deduce that the far left has an antisemitism problem. And honest brokers among that political tribe ought to be principled and courageous enough to admit it. Even if it’s only two or three people out of a hundred, it’s time to forcefully condemn it. Just say, “You don’t speak for us!”

This is your problem. This is your mess. Clean up your movement, before it’s too late.

Source: The Left Needs to Handle Its Antisemitism Problem—NOW

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McWhorter: I’m a Columbia Professor. The Protests on My Campus Are Not Justice.

2024/04/25 Leave a comment

Valid contrast if similar protests were against other groups or issues:

Last Thursday, in the music humanities class I teach at Columbia University, two students were giving an in-class presentation on the composer John Cage. His most famous piece is “4’33”,” which directs us to listen in silence to surrounding noise for exactly that period of time.

I had to tell the students we could not listen to that piece that afternoon, because the surrounding noise would have been not birds or people walking by in the hallway, but infuriated chanting from protesters outside the building. Lately that noise has been almost continuous during the day and into the evening, including lusty chanting of “From the river to the sea.” Two students in my class are Israeli; three others to my knowledge are American Jews. I couldn’t see making them sit and listen to this as if it were background music.

I thought about what would have happened if protesters were instead chanting anti-Black slogans, or even something like “D.E.I. has got to die,” to the same “Sound Off” tune that “From the river to the sea” has been adapted to. They would have lasted roughly five minutes before masses of students shouted them down and drove them off the campus. Chants like that would have been condemned as a grave rupture of civilized exchange, heralded as threatening resegregation and branded as a form of violence. I’d wager that most of the student protesters against the Gaza War would view them that way, in fact. Why do so many people think that weekslong campus protests against not just the war in Gaza but Israel’s very existence are nevertheless permissible?

Although I know many Jewish people will disagree with me, I don’t think that Jew-hatred is as much the reason for this sentiment as opposition to Zionism and the war on Gaza. I know some of the protesters, including a couple who were taken to jail last week, and I find it very hard to imagine that they are antisemitic. Yes, there can be a fine line between questioning Israel’s right to exist and questioning Jewish people’s right to exist. And yes, some of the rhetoric amid the protests crosses it.

Conversations I have had with people heatedly opposed to the war in Gaza, signage and writings on social media and elsewhere, and anti-Israel and generally hard-leftist comments that I have heard for decades on campuses place these confrontations within a larger battle against power structures — here in the form of what they call colonialism and genocide — and against whiteness. The idea is that Jewish students and faculty should be able to tolerate all of this because they are white.

I understand this to a point. Pro-Palestinian rallies and events, of which there have been many here over the years, are not in and of themselves hostile to Jewish students, faculty and staff members. Disagreement will not always be a juice and cookies affair. However, the relentless assault of this current protest — daily, loud, louder, into the night and using ever-angrier rhetoric — is beyond what anyone should be expected to bear up under regardless of their whiteness, privilege or power.

Social media discussion has been claiming that the protests are peaceful. They are, some of the time; it varies by location and day — generally what goes on within the campus gates is somewhat less strident than what happens just outside them. But relatively constant are the drumbeats — people will differ on how peaceful that sound can ever be, just as they will differ on the nature of antisemitism. What I do know is that even the most peaceful of protests would be treated as outrages if they were interpreted as, say, anti-Black — even if the message were coded, as in a bunch of people quietly holding up MAGA signs or wearing T-shirts saying “All Lives Matter.”

And besides, calling all this peaceful stretches the use of the word rather implausibly. It’s an odd kind of peace when a local rabbi urges Jewish students to go home as soon as possible, when an Arab-Israeli activist is roughed up on Broadway, when the angry chanting becomes so constant that you almost start not to hear it and it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying Hamas as heroes. The other night I watched a dad coming from the protest with his little girl, giving a good hard few final snaps on the drum he was carrying, nodding at her in crisp salute, percussing his perspective into her little mind. This is not peaceful.

I understand that the protesters and their fellow travelers feel that all of this is the proper response, social justice on the march. They have been told that righteousness means placing the battle against whiteness and its power front and center, contesting the abuse of power by any means necessary. And I myself think the war on Gaza is no longer constructive or even coherent.

However, the issues are complex, in ways that this uncompromising brand of power-battling is ill suited to address. Legitimate questions remain about the definition of genocide, about the extent of a nation’s right to defend itself and about the justice of partition (which has not historically been limited to Palestine). There is a reason many consider the Israel-Palestine conflict the most morally challenging in the modern world.

When I was at Rutgers in the mid-1980s, the protests were against investment in South Africa’s apartheid regime. There were similarities with the Columbia protests now: A large group of students established an encampment site right in front of the Rutgers student center on College Avenue, where dozens slept every night for several weeks. Among the largely white crowd, participation was a badge of civic commitment. There was chanting, along with the street theater inevitable, and perhaps even necessary, to effective protest — one guy even laid down in the middle of College Avenue to block traffic, taking a page from the Vietnam protests.

I don’t recall South Africans on campus feeling personally targeted, but the bigger difference was that though the protesters sought to make their point at high volume, over a long period and sometimes even rudely, they did not seek to all but shut down campus life.

On Monday night, Columbia announced that classes would be hybrid until the end of the semester, in the interest of student safety. I presume that the protesters will continue throughout the two main days of graduation, besmirching one of the most special days of thousands of graduates’ lives in the name of calling down the “imperialist” war abroad.

Today’s protesters don’t hate Israel’s government any more than yesterday’s hated South Africa’s. But they have pursued their goals with a markedly different tenor — in part because of the single-mindedness of antiracist academic culture and in part because of the influence of iPhones and social media, which inherently encourage a more heightened degree of performance. It is part of the warp and woof of today’s protests that they are being recorded from many angles for the world to see. One speaks up.

But these changes in moral history and technology can hardly be expected to comfort Jewish students in the here and now. What began as intelligent protest has become, in its uncompromising fury and its ceaselessness, a form of abuse.

Source: I’m a Columbia Professor. The Protests on My Campus Are Not Justice.

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Salman Rushdie Weighs In on Death Threats Against Taylor Swift Critic

2024/04/25 Leave a comment

Worth reading. Money quote: People have to stop having such thin skins.”:

Jon Stewart seemed a bit sheepish when he asked famed author Salman Rushdie, a victim of murder attempts on account of his novel Satanic Verses, to weigh in on Paste’s byline-less Taylor Swift critique this week on The Daily Show, after the site chose to publish their scathing review of the singer’s latest album anonymously due to death threats sent to the writer of their previous Swift critique.

Rushdie was violently attacked and stabbed 15 times in 2022 while giving a lecture in western New York. The acclaimed author was 75 at the time and narrowly escaped with his life. His assailant was motivated by an order for Rushdie’s death by Iran’s leader in the 1980s, who deemed Rushdie’s novel Satanic Verses blasphemous. That assailant later admitted to only reading “a couple pages” of the novel before attacking him.

After experiencing the violence someone can be driven to based even on the smallest tidbit of information, Rushdie seemed to Stewart a good person to ask about our current climate, in which a music critic has to publish their work without their name. As Paste stated at the time, “We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”

“There was a critic—and this is gonna sound like a joke—a critic of Taylor Swift’s new music album, The Tortured Poets Department, they had to remove the critic’s name from the critique because of death threats,” Stewart told Rushdie on The Daily Show Monday night.

“Because he didn’t like the record?” Rushdie asked in disbelief.

“Everybody’s so angry right now, that nobody can listen or talk to anybody else,” he added. “Everybody’s an expert, everybody’s got an opinion, and hostility. The level of anger is crazy right now.”

Rushdie said that though he doesn’t have the “answer to the world’s problems,” he has a few theories about why people seem to be resorting to violence more often over the simplest of disagreements—such as whether Swift’s album was good or bad. “People have always disagreed and people have always said, ‘You can’t say that, you’ve got to say this.’ That’s not new,” he said.

“What’s happened [now] is the temperature has risen,” Rushdie continued. “What’s new is the volume and the heat—so what do we do about taking down the volume and taking down the heat, that’s the question.”

The writer added that the level of violence and anger we’re seeing now has to do with a society in which “we’re all very easily offended,” adding, “People have to stop having such thin skins.”

“What’s more is we also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for attacking something—but actually, everything offends somebody, always,” Rushdie said, adding that the future under this kind of thinking doesn’t look good because, “If you go down that road, then we can’t talk to each other anymore.”

He also gave Stewart an update on how life has been since the attack on his life nearly two years ago. “It did certainly have an impact [on me],” he said. “I actually got my life back really, I’ve been living in New York City for 25 years,” after those initial 80s death threats. “For 23 years it was fine. I was doing everything that writers do, book tours, lectures,” he said, “It was a shock when this thing out of a quarter of a century ago, more than that, 30 years ago, sort of came out of a crowd at me.”

Despite the incident’s impact, Rushdie said, “It’s now been around 20 months [ago], I feel like I’m pretty much back to myself I think.”

Source: Salman Rushdie Weighs In on Death Threats Against Taylor Swift Critic

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What Was Revealed When British Officials Calculated How Much a Colonial Subject’s Life Was Worth

2024/04/25 Leave a comment

A reminder:

One hundred and five years ago, in April 1919, Mani Ram, a middle-aged dental surgeon, frantically ran to one of his son’s favorite play areas. His son, Madan Mohan, enjoyed playing at Jallianwalla Bagh, an empty plot of land in the center of Amritsar, Punjab, but had not come home. Mani Ram was worried because British officer General Reginald Dyer had just ordered his troops to cordon off Jallianwalla Bagh and open fire on all Indian subjects without warning. His officers fired 1,650 bullets at Indians, killing and injuring hundreds, including children at play.

Mani Ram found his son’s lifeless body, among hundreds of others at Jallianwalla Bagh, and carried it home.

Two years later, Mani Ram filed a claim with the imperial government for compensation for the loss of his son. The colonial government had long provided compensation payments to European families when their property was destroyed, or family members were injured or killed. For example, the British government compensated British Loyalists after the American Revolution, British enslavers after the abolition of slavery, and British subjects in India after a large wave of rebellions in 1857.

But 1921 was likely the first and only large-scale compensation for Indian families under British imperial control. British officials were adamant that the payments did not set a precedent and were eager to make them discreetly, burying the procedure, at times, in misclassified files in the archive. These files across London, Delhi, and Chandigarh show a deep racialized and gendered disparity in the value attributed to Indian and European lives, as well as the care distributed to their surviving family members or maimed subjects making such claims. Today, practices of compensation and reparations are still sorted through similar legal structures that echo those very racial disparities.

Dyer’s instruction to shoot Indians at Jallianwalla Bagh was not the only form of imperial violence Indian subjects experienced in 1919. In the early months of 1919, Indians had assembled to protest draconian British policies such as the Rowlatt Act, which granted British officials emergency powers to detain Indian subjects indefinitely without any opportunity for judicial review. In protest, some Indians resorted to attacking the colonial government’s infrastructure, such as railway lines, telegraph wires, and local banks.

British officials responded with great force. They caned, flogged, and detained Indian men and male children without warrant. British officials also declared martial law and opened fire on protesting Indians in Delhi, Bombay, Lahore, Amritsar, Kasur, and Gujrat. British pilots also air bombed parts of Gujranwala.

In the aftermath of the violence, local district magistrates utilized their discretion to allocate ₹523,571 to widows and children of five Europeans who lost their lives in Amritsar and Kasur, as well as to Europeans who were injured, shocked, or attacked during the protests. The compensation funds came from taxes and indemnities leveraged on Indians rather than British funds.

In stark contrast, state officials “distribut[ed] quietly” a sum of ₹14,050 to a handful of Indian subjects “through confidential enquiries,” fearing they should offer at least some reprieve for Indian subjects. Imperial officials hoped that this covert distribution of payments would discourage new requests and limit any precedents for compensation for state violence in the future. Most Indian families who suffered death or injury received no compensation. Those few families who did receive payment received low sums, far less than their European counterparts, and had to rebuild their lives with few resources.

The racial disparity in payments reflected the significant difference in the value placed on a European life compared to that of an Indian, with the former being valued at almost 200 times higher.

Facing global criticism for the violence in 1919, British officials in London instructed the central government in Delhi to investigate the actions of its British officers against Indians while simultaneously guaranteeing amnesty for all imperial officers. In 1920, a committee, mandated by the India Office and Government of India, delivered its final report on the wide array of violence used against Indian subjects. The committee’s four European members justified the widespread violence and brutal tactics employed by British officers in Punjab, while its three Indian members fervently disagreed.

The Government of India argued that its officers were legally permitted to use violence in all situations, including whipping, caning, forced crawling, and indefinite detainment, with only two exceptions. The first exception was Jallianwalla Bagh, where Dyer had ordered troops to fire on the gathering of Indians. The second exception was Gujranwala, a Punjabi locality where British pilots dropped bombs on colonial subjects from planes without warning.

Over the following months, Indian legislators became aware of the significant difference in compensation payments between Indians and Europeans in 1919. They demanded equal compensation for Indian families, political reforms, and an official statement of regret from the British government.

While British officials refused to issue a statement or implement substantial political reforms, they reluctantly approved limited compensation for Indians. However, they restricted the scope and amount of these payments. The decision was driven more by concerns for political stability in colonial India and Punjab than by any commitment to racial equality or justice.

Over the next two years, the Government of India and Punjab worked together to establish a compensation process for Punjabi families who had lost family members or were maimed at Jallianwalla Bagh and Gujranwala. Although the government encouraged families to come forward and file claims, many hesitated due to fears that the compensation process was merely a ploy by the imperial government to target the family members of Indians who were involved in the protests during the early months of 1919.

To determine the value of a person’s life, the Compensation Committee was instructed to utilize a method similar to actuarial science. This involved considering the individual’s annual income or projected income, as well as their life expectancy. After deducting one share for the deceased individual, the remaining payment was divided among his dependents. This process was much more limited in its scope compared to the compensation claims of European subjects in 1919.

The colonial government initially failed to include provisions for Indian women and children, believing their lives had little to no economic impact or worth to the livelihoods of families. Officials eventually agreed to assign a fixed nominal amount to account for their lives. In contrast, calculations for European women in 1919 not only considered life expectancy and annual income, but also took into account nearly all injuries and trauma they experienced.

The formal process of compensation implemented by the imperial government sometimes exacerbated the trauma experienced by Indian subjects. The Compensation Committee asked Mani Ram what the value of his 10-year-old son was. Mani Ram testified that his son was an intelligent student with ambitions that could have led him to achieve any position within the government, even that of a governor. The details of the subsequent conversation between colonial officials and Mani Ram are unknown, but we know that Mani Ram pleaded with the government not to “add insult to injury.”

The allocation given to Indians reflected the significant racial inequality that the imperial government placed on the value of its subjects’ lives. After completing their work, the Viceroy’s Council provided ₹226,000 to over 700 Indian individuals as compensation for the excessive violence inflicted by the colonial government in 1919. This sum, supported through funds collected from indemnities, fines, and taxes imposed on Indians, was less than half of what was distributed among almost a dozen European subjects.

This history, carefully uncovered from governmental records, provides us with a deeper understanding of the past, particularly how legal procedures and bureaucratic systems supported British imperial rule and marginalized the value of Indian claims and lives. But this history is also significant in our present time, as it sheds light on modern practices of compensation as demands for restitution, reparations, and reparative justice, continue.

Hardeep Dhillon is an educator and historian at the University of Pennsylvania. She recently authored “Imperial Violence, Law, and Compensation in the Age of Empire, 1919–1922,” which is open access to all readers through The Historical Journal.

Source: What Was Revealed When British Officials Calculated How Much a Colonial Subject’s Life Was Worth

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Why Did Modi Call India’s Muslims ‘Infiltrators’? Because He Could.

2024/04/24 Leave a comment

Sigh….

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his power at home secured and his Hindu-first vision deeply entrenched, has set his sights in recent years on a role as a global statesman, riding India’s economic and diplomatic rise. In doing so, he has distanced himself from his party’s staple work of polarizing India’s diverse population along religious lines for its own electoral gain.

His silence provided tacit backing as vigilante groups continued to target non-Hindu minority groups and as members of his party routinely used hateful and racist language, even in Parliament, against the largest of those groups, India’s 200 million Muslims. With the pot kept boiling, Mr. Modi’s subtle dog whistles — with references to Muslim dress or burial places — could go a long way domestically while providing enough deniability to ensure that red carpets remained rolled out abroad for the man leading the world’s largest democracy.

Just what drove the prime minister to break with this calculated pattern in a fiery campaign speech on Sunday — when he referred to Muslims by name as “infiltrators” with “more children” who would get India’s wealth if his opponents took power — has been hotly debated. It could be a sign of anxiety that his standing with voters is not as firm as believed, analysts said. Or it could be just a reflexive expression of the kind of divisive religious ideology that has fueled his politics from the start.

But the brazenness made clear that Mr. Modi sees few checks on his enormous power. At home, watchdog institutions have been largely bent to the will of his Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. Abroad, partners increasingly turn a blind eye to what Mr. Modi is doing in India as they embrace the country as a democratic counterweight to China.

“Modi is one of the world’s most skilled and experienced politicians,” said Daniel Markey, a senior adviser in the South Asia program at the United States Institute of Peace. “He would not have made these comments unless he believed he could get away with it.”

Mr. Modi may have been trying to demonstrate this impunity, Mr. Markey said, “to intimidate the B.J.P.’s political opponents and to show them — and their supporters — just how little they can do in response.”…

Source: Why Did Modi Call India’s Muslims ‘Infiltrators’? Because He Could.

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Chicago’s response to migrant influx stirs long-standing frustrations among its Blacks – Voice of America

2024/04/24 Leave a comment

Of note:

The closure of Wadsworth Elementary School in 2013 was a blow to residents of the majority-Black neighborhood it served, symbolizing a city indifferent to their interests.

So when the city reopened Wadsworth last year to shelter hundreds of migrants without seeking community input, it added insult to injury. Across Chicago, Black residents are frustrated that long-standing needs are not being met while the city’s newly arrived are cared for with a sense of urgency, and with their tax dollars.

“Our voices are not valued nor heard,” said Genesis Young, a lifelong Chicagoan who lives near Wadsworth.

Chicago is one of several big American cities grappling with a surge of migrants. The Republican governor of Texas has been sending them by the busload to highlight his grievances with the Biden administration’s immigration policy.

To manage the influx, Chicago has already spent more than $300 million of city, state and federal funds to provide housing, health care, education and more to over 38,000 mostly South American migrants who have arrived in the city since 2022, desperate for help. The speed with which these funds were marshaled has stirred widespread resentment among Black Chicagoans.

But community leaders are trying to ease racial tensions and channel the public’s frustrations into agitating for the greater good.

Political reactions

The outcry over migrants in Chicago and other large Democrat-led cities is having wider implications in an election year: The Biden administration is now advocating a more restrictive approach to immigration in its negotiations with Republicans in Congress.

Since the Wadsworth building reopened as a shelter, Young has felt “extreme anxiety” because of the noise, loitering and around-the-clock police presence that came with it. More than anything, she and other neighbors say it is a reminder of problems that have been left unsolved for years, including high rates of crime, unemployment and homelessness.

“I definitely don’t want to seem insensitive to them and them wanting a better life. However, if you can all of a sudden come up with all these millions of dollars to address their housing, why didn’t you address the homeless issue here?” said Charlotte Jackson, the owner of a bakery and restaurant in the South Loop neighborhood.

“For so long we accepted that this is how things had to be in our communities,” said Chris Jackson, who co-founded the bakery with his wife. “This migrant crisis has made many people go: ‘Wait a minute, no it doesn’t.’ ”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson declined to comment for this story.

The city received more than $200 million from the state and federal governments to help care for migrants after Johnson appealed to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and President Joe Biden. The president will be in Chicago in August to make his reelection pitch at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Some see opportunity

Some Black Chicagoans are protesting the placement of shelters in their neighborhoods, but others aim to turn the adversity into an opportunity.

“Chicago is a microcosm to the rest of the nation,” said the Reverend Janette C. Wilson, national executive director of the civil rights group PUSH for Excellence. Black communities have faced discrimination and underinvestment for decades and are justifiably frustrated, Wilson said. The attention the migrants are receiving is deserved, she added, but it’s also a chance for cities to reflect on their responsibility to all underserved communities.

“There is a moral imperative to take care of everybody,” Wilson said.

After nearly two years of acrimony, the city has begun to curb some accommodations for migrants – which has caused its own backlash. The city last month started evicting migrants who overstayed a 60-day limit at shelters, prompting condemnation from immigrant rights groups and from residents worried about public safety.

Marlita Ingram, a school guidance counselor who lives in the South Shore neighborhood, said she was concerned about the resources being shared “equitably” between migrants and longtime residents. But she said she also believed that “it doesn’t have to be a competition” and sympathized with the nearly 6,000 migrant children now enrolled in Chicago’s public schools.

As the potential for racial strife rises, some activists are pointing to history as a cautionary tale.

Hundreds of thousands of Black Southerners moved to Chicago in the early 20th century in search of greater freedoms and economic opportunities. White Chicagoans at the time accused them of receiving disproportionate resources from the city, and in 1919 tensions boiled over.

In a surge of racist attacks in cities across the U.S. that came to be known as “Red Summer,” white residents burned large swaths of Chicago’s Black neighborhoods and killed 38 Black people, including by lynching.

“Those white folks were, like, ‘Hell, no, they’re coming here, they’re taking our jobs,’ ” said Richard Wallace, founder of Equity and Transformation, a majority-Black community group that co-hosted a forum in March to improve dialogue between Black and Latino residents.

Echoes of past

He hears echoes of that past bigotry — intentional or not — when Black Chicagoans complain about the help being given to migrants. “How did we become like the white folks who were resisting our people coming to the city of the Chicago?” he said.

Labor and immigrant rights organizers have worked for years to tamp down divisions among working class communities. But the migrant crisis has created tensions between the city’s large Mexican American community and recently arrived migrants, many of whom hail from Venezuela.

“If left unchecked, we all panic, we’re all scared, we’re going to retreat to our corners,” said Leone Jose Bicchieri, executive director of Working Family Solidarity, a majority-Hispanic labor rights group. “The truth is that this city wouldn’t work without Black and Latino people.”

Black Americans’ views on immigration and diversity are expansive. The Civil Rights Movement was instrumental in pushing the U.S. to adopt a more inclusive immigration policy.

About half of Black Americans say the United States’ diverse population makes the country strong, including 30% who say it makes the U.S. “much stronger,” according to a March poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Many leaders in Black neighborhoods in and around Chicago are trying to acknowledge the tensions without exacerbating them.

“Our church is divided on the migrant crisis,” said the Reverend Chauncey Brown, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Maywood, Illinois, a majority-Black suburb of Chicago where some migrants are living in shelters.

There has been a noticeable uptick of non-English speakers in the pews, many of whom have said they are migrants in need of food and other services, Brown said. Some church members cautioned him against speaking out in support of migrants or allotting more church resources to them. But he said the Bible’s teachings are clear on this issue.

“When a stranger enters your land, you are to care for them as if they are one of your own,” he said.

Source: Chicago’s response to migrant influx stirs long-standing frustrations among its Blacks – Voice of America

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David | Le multiculturalisme financier, Clark: The Bloc’s fake freakout over halal mortgages is ridiculous

2024/04/24 Leave a comment

Starting with on cue, commentary in Le Devoir and Bloc “outrage” in Parliament:

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon a sans doute péché par anachronisme quand il a dénoncé « une action concertée pour nous effacer ». En revanche, il faut reconnaître au gouvernement Trudeau un remarquable talent pour la provocation.

Après son offensive prébudgétaire dans les champs de compétence des provinces, le budget lui-même contenait une autre trouvaille : la possibilité d’introduire les « hypothèques islamiques » dans le système bancaire canadien.

Il ne suffisait pas qu’Ottawa se prépare à appuyer la contestation de la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État devant la Cour suprême ; il lui fallait aussi agiter ce chiffon rouge devant le taureau. Après tout, si la religion peut avoir sa place dans les institutions publiques, pourquoi pas dans les banques, n’est-ce pas ?

Comme il fallait s’y attendre, le gouvernement Legault n’a pas tardé à réagir. « Nous sommes clairement mal à l’aise avec cette idée », a déclaré le ministre responsable de la Laïcité, Jean-François Roberge. « Traiter différemment, d’un point de vue bancaire, les personnes selon leurs croyances religieuses est en contradiction des choix qu’a faits le Québec. » La laïcité est un des rares sujets sur lesquels la Coalition avenir Québec peut encore espérer rallier une majorité de Québécois.

Sans surprise, le Parti québécois a aussi signifié son opposition, mais le Parti libéral et Québec solidaire (QS), tous deux opposés à la loi 21, sont manifestement embarrassés. « Nous allons prendre le temps d’étudier l’enjeu avant de nous prononcer », a déclaré le député libéral de Marguerite-Bourgeoys, Frédéric Beauchemin, tandis que QS préfère attendre de voir si le gouvernement Trudeau décidera d’aller de l’avant lors de la mise à jour économique de l’automne prochain. Et prier pour qu’il se ravise.

*****

Le chef du Bloc québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, a dénoncé ce qui constituerait à ses yeux « un dangereux précédent », qui serait créé pour des raisons purement « clientélistes » par un gouvernement cherchant à « racoler le vote de la minorité musulmane canadienne et québécoise ».

Les hypothèques islamiques ou « halal », qui remplacent le paiement d’intérêts par d’autres formes de frais, ne font pas l’unanimité au sein même de la communauté musulmane, qui en débat depuis des années. En 2009, le groupe saoudien AlBassam House avait demandé au gouvernement Harper l’autorisation d’ouvrir une première banque offrant ce service au Canada, ce que ne permet pas la loi.

Après avoir longuement examiné la question, la Société canadienne d’hypothèques et de logement (SCHL) avait écarté cette possibilité qui n’intéresse encore aucune des grandes banques. Ceux qui souhaitent contracter une hypothèque de type halal conforme à la charia peuvent s’adresser à des coopératives musulmanes.

Un des opposants les plus acharnés à ce sujet, que le Bloc québécois a pris à témoin, est Tarek Fatah, fondateur du Congrès musulman du Canada, à ne pas confondre avec le Conseil national des musulmans canadiens, vivement opposé à la loi 21.

Ce journaliste d’origine pakistanaise, qui a eu une carrière passablement mouvementée, a notamment milité pour le Nouveau Parti démocratique, dont il a claqué la porte parce qu’il le jugeait trop accueillant pour les islamistes.

Déjà, il y a quinze ans, il s’était réjoui du rejet des hypothèques islamistes par la SCHL. « Cela cible des musulmans vulnérables et marginalisés, à qui l’on dit que, s’ils font affaire à des non-musulmans, ils iront en enfer. C’est comme l’Église catholique du XIIIe siècle », disait-il.

*****

Au reste, comme dans le cas du port du voile, l’interdiction de l’intérêt résulterait d’une interprétation discutable du Coran par le mouvement islamiste. C’est plutôt « l’usure » que proscrirait le livre saint, c’est-à-dire un taux d’intérêt excessif.

Tous n’ont pas les mêmes réserves. Aux critiques de M. Fatah, le magazine Maclean’s avait opposé celles d’un professeur de l’Université de Toronto, Walid Hejazi, selon lequel le Canada avait tout intérêt à s’ouvrir à la « finance islamique ».

La demande va aller en augmentant et le Canada risque d’être écarté d’un marché mondial qui va atteindre des centaines de milliards, plaidait-il. Selon lui, l’hypothèque islamique est un produit financier comme les autres qui peut être utilisé aussi bien par un musulman ou un non-musulman.

Outre l’aspect économique, permettre à des gens d’avoir accès à un financement compatible avec leurs convictions religieuses « serait cohérent avec les valeurs fondamentales du Canada et notre fière histoire », ajoutait M. Hejazi. La question est de savoir si cela est cohérent avec celles du Québec.

La possibilité d’introduire des considérations religieuses dans le système financier n’avait pas été discutée lors du débat sur la laïcité, mais elle aurait probablement soulevé un tollé. Justin Trudeau ne cherche sans doute pas à provoquer volontairement le Québec. C’est simplement que ce dernier ne fait pas partie de sa vision du Canada. N’empêche qu’il joue avec le feu.

Source: Chronique | Le multiculturalisme financier

Clark provides a suitable riposte:

….Yet Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet and some of his MPs issued dark warnings that three paragraphs in last week’s budget will set Canada – and therefore Quebec – on a slippery slope into sharia law.

This is dumb. Or disingenuous. Probably both.

The budget passage in question indicated that the mandarins of Finance Canada will explore possible ways to expand access to halal mortgages and other “alternative financing products.”…

Source: The Bloc’s fake freakout over halal mortgages is ridiculous

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Chinese Communist Party-affiliated institute compiled profiles of Canadian MPs of Chinese descent

2024/04/23 Leave a comment

Not unexpected but different than normal engagement of diaspora communties that Canada also practices with respect to its expatriates:

A research institute in China that is affiliated with the ruling Communist Party’s foreign-influence operations compiled extensive profiles of members of Parliament with Chinese ethnicity, two sources say.

The sources say this Chinese institute used large-scale data analytics and artificial intelligence to create detailed profiles in 2022. There are fewer than 10 MPs of Chinese descent in Canada’s House of Commons.

The profiles were drawn up by a research institute that supports the work of China’s United Front Work Department, a body that answers to the party’s central committee. UFWD oversees Beijing’s influence, propaganda and intelligence operations inside and outside China. The Globe and Mail has been unable to confirm the name of the institute.

The sources say China’s cyber and digital operation to gather information on these MPs was first detected by the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s secret signals intelligence agency, and shared with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). The Globe is not revealing the identity of the two sources, who risk prosecution under the Security of Information Act for discussing these matters….

Source: Chinese Communist Party-affiliated institute compiled profiles of Canadian MPs of Chinese descent

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Golden Visa Programs, Once a Boon, Lose Their Luster

2024/04/23 Leave a comment

Long overdue:

Faced with growing pressure to address its housing crunch, Spain said this month that it would scrap its golden visas, the latest in a wider withdrawal from the program by governments around Europe.

Half a dozen eurozone countries offered the visas at the height of Europe’s debt crisis in 2012 to help plug gaping budget deficits. Countries that needed international bailouts — Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece among them — were especially desperate for cash to repay creditors, and saw a path to bring in investors while reviving their moribund real estate markets.

The golden visa program brought Spain billions of euros in investments. But property prices paid by rich foreigners are well beyond the earning power of locals.

Countries reaped a windfall: Spain alone has issued 14,576 visas linked to wealthy buyers making real estate investments of more than €500,000. But the prices that they can afford are squeezing people like Dr. Barba out of a market that had already been highly inflated by the rise of Airbnb and the draw of Wall Street investors.

“Access to housing needs to be a right instead of a speculative business,” Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, said in a speech this month as he announced the end of the country’s golden visa program. “Major cities are facing highly stressed markets, and it’s almost impossible to find decent housing for those who already live, work and pay their taxes.”

The visas make it easy for people outside the European Union to buy the right to temporary residency, sometimes without having to live in the country. Investors from China, Russia and the Middle East flocked to buy real estate through them.

In recent years, British nationals have followed suit in the wake of Brexit, snapping up homes in Greece, Portugal and Spain, joined by an increasing number of Americans looking to enjoy a lifestyle they can’t afford in major U.S. cities.

But golden visa programs are now being phased out or shut down around Europe as governments seek to undo the damage to the housing market. And after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, E.U. officials urged governments to end them, warning they could be used for money laundering, tax evasion and even organized crime….

Source: Golden Visa Programs, Once a Boon, Lose Their Luster

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Erfan: Middle East student dialogue: As an expert in deep conflict, what I’ve learned about making conversation possible

2024/04/23 Leave a comment

Timely (the Wosk Centre for Dialogue specializes in difficult conversations):

…Secret ingredient: ‘Containers’

One secret ingredient to successfully working with groups concerned with contentious topics is creating physical and psychological conditions that make it easier to speak and listen with the goal of understanding. These are known as dialogic containers. Facilitators and participants intentionally build these, and they can include things like: how the room is set up; the level of hospitality in the space; explicit agreements participants in the group assent to about how to be together.

On the night of the BDS dialogue, I thought a lot about the container, including preparing myself intellectually and emotionally to facilitate. But in the group, we also spent nearly an hour building the container through negotiating group agreements. 

Negotiating group agreements

There are many examples of standard group agreements, but I believe in making them from scratch every time, for each unique situation and group. Often groups make agreements about confidentiality and avoiding personal attacks. 

The night of the 2015 BDS referendum, students negotiated some unique agreements, including: 

  • That we would acknowledge the right to existence for both Palestinian and Israeli people and the right to existence of the States of Palestine and Israel, according to the 1967 borders. (This item, which is in the heart of much of the contention in the region, took the majority of the hour to negotiate. It wasn’t that everyone — or anyone — in the room was happy with it — but it was enough recognition, enough of a bridge, to make the conversation possible).
  • That if the conversation stretched past 8 p.m., we would order pizza and the options must include vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan, Halal and Kosher. (I have always felt that the pizza agreement was a breakthrough because by the time you are talking about sharing food, much humanizing has happened.)

‘Flagging’ in real time

In other spaces, my students have negotiated:

  • an intention to avoid using supercharged labels thrown around on the internet (words like “race-baiter,” “snowflake” or “fascist”);
  • to replace an impulse to shout with a declaration of “I am not feeling heard”;
  • to have an observer raise a literal flag when a person was on the edge of stereotyping. 

Not all situations are ripe for dialogue. Charged civil conversations on a university campus do not solve the big conflicts of our times, nor does a whole semester in dialogue. 

Some critics even say that these initiatives divert attention, and take away the energy from pursuing justice, or that they “normalize” oppressive arrangements by sugarcoating them in dialogue. 

Capacity to be together

But these initiatives do provide a space for students who have never been in conversation with each other to talk, to ask questions that they cannot ask anywhere else and to gain more nuanced perspectives.

The capacity to be together is important to pick up while we are students, lest we think that online screaming matches or acts of despair and total disengagement are our only options.

As difficult as it is to remain in conversation on something as divisive as the Hamas-Israel war, as an educator I hope we remain on the lookout for the right time to get back into talking with each other about this on our university campuses.

Source: Middle East student dialogue: As an expert in deep conflict, what I’ve learned about making conversation possible

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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