Ezra Levant wrongly accuses Ontario school board of allowing exemptions for Muslim students on Remembrance Day

2014/11/13 Leave a comment

Never let facts get in the way of sensationalism – or marketing:

The school board memo, which was primarily about the significance of Remembrance Day, included a series of six links directing teachers to online resources.

It was accompanied by 10 photographs, including pictures of Sikh soldiers and veterans, an Ojibwa Canadian veteran of the Korean War, a Mennonite veteran and a Jewish soldier in a prayer shawl carrying a Torah.

“Remembrance Day is a wonderful ‘teachable moment’ – and the Canadian War Museum has lots to offer with resources that are reflective of our Canadian nation – and our equally diverse local population,” read the memo, with a link to a page on the National War Museum site.

Other links included a memorial about the first Canadian Muslim woman to wear a hijab in uniform. There are also links to Google Image search results featuring aboriginal Canadian soldiers, African Canadian soldiers, and Asian Canadian soldiers.

“There were some links included on the memo that were provided for principals and schools doing Remembrance Day ceremonies that helped reinforce the diversity of our armed forces, because that’s sometimes a forgotten element,” said Mr. Scantlebury, who noted that the Greater Essex County is one of the most diverse in Canada.

Mr. Scantlebury said on Tuesday that he was not aware of any student that had requested any special accommodation. He added that he had been receiving calls on the matter for much of the day.

“We feel it’s very unfortunate that this has taken away, somewhat, from what is a very solemn occasion in our schools,” he said.

Mr. Levant’s column ends with a call to sign a petition protesting the school board at LoveItOrLeave.ca. There, Levant’s supporters can purchase T-shirts sporting a Canadian flag design and the statement “If you don’t love it, leave.”

They can also buy tickets to a three-night “Free Speech” tour featuring Levant and Sun Media’s Brian Lilley. VIP seats for the stop in Red Deer, Alta., are priced at $109.85.

Ezra Levant wrongly accuses Ontario school board of allowing exemptions for Muslim students on Remembrance Day – The Globe and Mail.

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ICYMI: Getting information on the ground on the Islamic State

2014/11/12 Leave a comment

Fascinating reporting in the Globe of some of the efforts to collect information on war crimes and other human rights violations:

There are risks, however, that come with sending investigators into a combat zone with armed opposition groups. Some outside observers worry about the reliability of the embedded investigators, in part because there is always a risk they could become involved in wartime atrocities themselves.

Documentation collected now could be dismissed by a future war crimes tribunal for multiple reasons. Questions about the investigators’ methods, issues with the way witnesses are interrogated, and errors in tracking custody of documents that are retrieved are all issues that could be picked apart by a defence team.

But many observers seem to believe the benefits of running an investigation now – rather than waiting until the conflict is over – far outweigh the risks.

Independent groups like the one investigating Islamic State also have a higher tolerance for risk than the more formal investigation by the United Nations commission of inquiry on Syria, which has produced reports on atrocities but is not focused on linking specific crimes to the individuals who may have ordered them.

“There is going to be an immense security challenge once the conflict ends,” one investigator said. “If the Syrians don’t want to endure a decade or more of terrorism, as experienced by Iraq, they’re going to need a security foundation, and that foundation will be built on information derived from investigations now.”

Getting information on the ground on the Islamic State – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , , ,

Lest We Forget

2014/11/11 Leave a comment

1103 warmemorial 002.JPG

Photo Ottawa Citizen

Filed under Multiculturalism

The face Canada showed the world – Margaret Wente

2014/11/10 Leave a comment

Margaret Wente’s cheery piece on what Canada got right, referring to the Hamilton video experiment on attitudes towards Muslims (Hamilton racism social experiment ends with a punch | Toronto Star) and the community efforts to clean up the damage at the Cold Lake Mosque (Volunteers help clean vandalism from Cold Lake mosque):

When I wear the poppy, I sometimes think of my dad and grandfather, who fought so that some day we could live in a nation just like this. But why us? Why are we the lucky ones? How have we managed to escape the racial and ethnic strife that plagues most of the rest of the world?

One reason is that Canada is so new. Almost all of us are immigrants – newcomers ourselves not so long ago. And our dual English-French identities have been a great test of our ability to accommodate our differences without tearing each other to shreds. So far, so good. We’ve learned a lot from that.

Our identity is not defined by blood, or by our sense of destiny. We have no concept of Volk. We’re just folks. We don’t care who you are or where you came from or who or what you worship, as long as you share our good Canadian bourgeois values. Don’t litter. Send your kids to school. Wear a poppy.

We are blessed with a lot of elbow room, and we have borders that are relatively impermeable. No massive waves of refugees and migrants wash up on our shores. We never imported guest workers who we thought would go home, but didn’t.

Unlike Europe, our immigrants come from all corners of the planet. We’ve dodged the problem of large subgroups that self-ghettoize and don’t assimilate. Here, everyone gets thrown together and winds up at Tim Hortons or maybe Starbucks. And the locals are extremely friendly, which means that the whole world wants to come here, so we get our pick. We have created a virtuous circle of tolerance and openness that is rivalled only by Australia, a nation just like ours, only with a better climate and a worse accent.

As my friend and colleague Sheema Khan said of Mr. Albach’s video, “This is the face that Canada is showing to the world.” After two terrorist attacks, people punched out the bigots and took flowers to the mosque. No wonder we’re the envy of the world.

The face Canada showed the world – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , ,

Don’t Overreact, Canada – Patriquin

2014/11/10 Leave a comment

Martin Patriquin on the risks of over-reaction:

Canadians need only look to the south to see how attacks on individuals and establishments can’t usually be prevented by increased surveillance of a country’s civilians. The United States arguably is home to the world’s largest and most sophisticated intelligence-gathering network, the excesses of which have been documented by leaks from the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden.

Yet none of this prevented the breach of the White House in September, in which an Iraq war veteran scaled the White House fence and made it to within feet of where the president and his family live before being apprehended. Nor has surveillance hindered the ability of various gunmen to inflict mass murder on innocents throughout the years. As the former Vice President Al Gore noted last year, in a speech decrying the folly of such mass intelligence gathering, “When you are looking for a needle in a haystack, it’s not always wise to pile more hay on the haystack.”

Theoretically, it would be possible for the Canadian government to legislate itself the powers to prevent all such attacks. Yet the trade-off — constant surveillance, criminalization of dissent, restriction of free movement and the economy — would make the country unlivable. It would be a travesty if the actions of two troubled individuals moved the country closer to that possibility.

Don’t Overreact, Canada – NYTimes.com.

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Conservative ‘barbaric practices’ bill panders to fear of immigrants: Walkom

2014/11/10 Leave a comment

Tom Walkom on the Government’s pandering to its base:

As justification for his bill, Alexander cited the case of Mohammad Shafia, an Afghan immigrant who, along with his wife and son, killed three of his daughters and the girls’ stepmother.

What the minister didn’t point out is that all three killers received the maximum sentence — life in prison.

“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour . . . that has absolutely no placed in any civilized society,” the judge said at sentencing.

Not much leniency there.

In another case cited by Alexander this week, it’s hard to know what the judge will say. The alleged wife-killer has not yet gone to trial.

This inconvenient fact didn’t stop the minister from publicly declaring the recent immigrant from Afghanistan guilty of an honour killing. It’s the second time this year that Alexander has preemptively convicted this particular man. The first was in a March speech for Toronto’s Canadian Club.

It is true that Canada does not tolerate practices more common in other countries. Americans who want to come to Canada must give up their handguns. Chinese billionaires, if they wish to settle here, may have only one spouse apiece. Murdering wives and daughters — for any reason — is just not on.

But laws in these areas already exist. With the exceptions noted above, Alexander’s bill does not add anything helpful. In the guise of protecting women it takes potshots at Muslim immigrants. Its motives are crassly political.

Perhaps the title of the bill could be changed from “Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act” to “Craven Pandering to the Conservative Base and anti-Muslim Sentiment.”

Conservative ‘barbaric practices’ bill panders to fear of immigrants: Walkom | Toronto Star.

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Unicode consortium looks to bring ethnic diversity to emoji by mid-2015

2014/11/08 1 Comment

EmojisMulticultural emojis:

Instead of picking its own tints, Unicode proposes employing six shades from the Fitzpatrick scale, a widely recognized dermatologic standard developed to study skin tone. The initial color variations, ranging from light pink to dark brown, may change when Unicode 8.0 launches next year.

As far as implementation, users will be able to apply skin colors to a select group of characters as a font modifier, keeping the already expansive set of icons somewhat manageable. The default method displays a selected character, a color swatch and the combined result. Alternatively, a shorthand version simply displays the character and swatch glyph to be applied.

In yet another example more conducive for use with small-screened devices like smartphones, a long press on a desired emoji may bring up a preview palette showing a selected character in multiple skin tones.

Apple in March said that it was working with the Unicode Consortium to update the emoji standard with an ethnically diverse set of characters. The Cupertino, Calif., company most recently changed its emoji keyboard to include same-sex couples and families in iOS 6.

Unicode consortium looks to bring ethnic diversity to emoji by mid-2015.

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Quebec union apologizes for liquor store video that singled out immigrants

2014/11/08 Leave a comment

Same narrow mindset that brought us the Quebec Values Charter. The CSN, if I recall correctly, may have supported the Charter:

The video, recorded in Alberta, included comments from a French-speaking man suggesting private liquor sales in the province have resulted in a poor level of customer service.

The unidentified man asserts that immigrant business owners from India and Pakistan are uninformed salespeople when it comes to the sale of alcohol.

Following a backlash from outraged residents of Quebec and Alberta, the union, the Confederation des Syndicats Nationaux, issued an apology and announced its decision to remove the controversial remarks from the video.

Devinder Toor owns 14 Alberta liquor stores and has been in the alcohol sales business for 14 years.

He says he and his staff stay on top of available products in the market.“We are very confident,” explains Toor. “The staff works to answer all the needs of the customers. We try to put the best value for the customers in terms of knowledge, prices and everything.”

Quebec union apologizes for liquor store video that singled out immigrants | Toronto Star.

Filed under Charte des valeurs québécoise, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Ottawa students use satire to battle ISIL and highlight plight of Arab women with video

2014/11/08 Leave a comment

One of the better examples of grass-roots efforts to create a radicalization counter-narrative, and a funny parody of Apple ads in the ISIS context (watch the video report – 2 minutes):

Inspired by Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, the trio and half a dozen occasional cast members are attempting to bring satire into places and minds that have never experienced it.

“We are trying to take the best of this world and introduce it to the Middle East and bring the best of the Middle East and introduce it to this world,’ says Barghouthi, a Carleton University biology student.

Prime among the trio’s target audience are Canadian Muslims in their own age group – the same young western Muslims that ISIL has in its sights.

“ISIS has been able to get wide attention across the world by using very slick videos made by highly qualified people,” says Marwah. “By making people laugh we hope our message will sink in.“

“Our message to young Muslims is that ISIS is using Islam in a sick way – using it as an excuse to kill people,” says Carleton political management student Marwah. “They are going after your emotions. Canada is a beautiful country, don’t let this stuff spoil it for you.”

Marwah says he has seen no evidence in his circle of friends that the ISIL message is resonating.

“For all of us, I think to know that someone would want to kill people in the name of our religion is frustrating,” he says.

Ottawa students use satire to battle ISIL and highlight plight of Arab women with video | Ottawa Citizen.

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Why I don’t believe people who say they loathe Islam but not Muslims

2014/11/07 Leave a comment

Valid point (like saying “some of my best friends are Jewish”):

Racial and religious hatreds have one thing in common: they are not inspired by the race or religion of the hater, but by the religion or race of the victim. This is clearest in the case of antisemitism, which can appear as either a racial or a religious hatred, or indeed both. What’s constant is that it involves hating Jewish people, whatever the reasons given. Similarly, if you hate black people, you hate them on racist grounds whatever the colour of your own skin, and if you hate Muslims, Catholics, Quakers or Mormons, you hate them for their religion – whatever your own beliefs. So it is perfectly possible for religious hatred to be motivated by atheism and it may be quite common in the modern world.

The claim that Islam isn’t a race and so it is entirely rational to hate and fear it gains its moral force from the implicit claim that there is something uniquely horrible about racial hatred. I don’t think there is, though I see why we assume it: 50 or 60 years ago racial prejudice was an entirely natural part of English life. In order to change that, it was necessary to mark it as a uniquely dreadful and disfiguring condition: racism became a kind of moral leprosy. Without in any way wishing to roll back that progress, it’s worth noting that in other societies and at other times racial prejudice has not been the most urgent incitement to communal hatred.

Why I don’t believe people who say they loathe Islam but not Muslims | Andrew Brown | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

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