The state of America’s widening wealth gap

2014/08/26 Leave a comment

Sobering. Will be looking at Canadian data over the next little while to see how we are doing:

The Census data suggest that the wealth gap in America has widened over the past decade, regardless of how you slice it. The gap between the bottom and top quintiles in America has widened, as has the gap between blacks and whites, and between workers with only a high school degree and those with much more. This implies that the returns to higher education in America are growing (in 2000, households headed by someone with a bachelor’s degree were worth 2.4 times as much as those with only a high school diploma; by 2011 the ratio was 3.4). And racial inequality in wealth is growing, too (in 2000, white households had a net worth 10.6 times larger than blacks; by 2011 it was 17.5).

As of 2011, this is what wealth in America looks like. Toggle between the groups and you can compare them, by quintile. The most well-off whites, for example, are doing substantially better than the most well-off blacks. The differences in education are even more stark. Notably, the bottom quintile of every group has a negative net worth — in other words, those households are in debt.

The state of America’s widening wealth gap – Washington Post

Filed under Multiculturalism

Lubomyr Luciuk: Remembering a time when Canadians were caged

2014/08/26 2 Comments

Lubomyr Luciuk on the World War 1 internment camps and the unveiling of plaques commemorating them. More balanced that some of the language of activists interviewed on CBC that called them “concentration camps:”

That led to the creation of the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, an inclusive body charged with hallowing the memory of all of the First World War’s “enemy aliens” through commemorative and educational initiatives. I take great satisfaction in recalling how two men working together, one of Chinese and the other of Ukrainian heritage, saw justice done, despite all the naysayers and thwarters. The country Inky and I share is one we are proud to be citizens of.

Today, one hundred years after passage of The War Measures Act — the same Act deployed in the Second World War against our fellow Japanese, Italian, and German Canadians, and against some Québécois in 1970 — over 100 plaques will be unveiled at 11 am local time in over 60 cities, starting in Amherst, Nova Scotia then flowing west to Nanaimo, B.C., a first-ever event in Canadian history. This national wave of remembrance, beginning and ending at internment camp sites, will sweep from coast to coast where a wave of repression once passed. These plaques fulfil Mary’s dream.

Lubomyr Luciuk: Remembering a time when Canadians were caged

Filed under Historical Recognition Tagged with , ,

Canadians in terrorist armies threaten us all – CSIS and Canadian Responsibility

2014/08/25 Leave a comment

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Michel Coulombe’s op-ed on radicalization. Not much new in his overview, and no particular insights into why some are radicalized or not, but nevertheless worth reading.

I found however his comment below interesting in light of the Government’s recent changes to the Citizenship Act providing for revocation in cases of dual nationals engaged in terrorist activities.

Coulombe is saying that this is a “Canadian problem.”

Indeed, so why therefore should we banish or exile them, rather than locking them up in Canada?

Even if a Canadian extremist does not immediately return, he or she is still a Canadian problem. No country can become an unwitting exporter of terrorism without suffering damage to its international image and relations. Just as Canada expects other nations to prevent their citizens from harming Canadians and Canadian interests, we too are obligated to deny Canadian extremists the ability to kill and terrorize people of other countries.

 

Same point made by Chris Selley of the National Post, among others (Stripping jihadis’ citizenship feels good. But what good does it do?, Actually, my citizenship is a right):

Canadians in terrorist armies threaten us all – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Citizenship, Radicalization, Revocation Tagged with , , ,

The lawyer who challenged the Harper government and won

2014/08/25 Leave a comment

Well worth a read, the Globe’s profile of Rocco Galati, the lawyer who successfully challenged the Nadon appointment, and a reminder that Canadian multiculturalism was not always so tolerant and welcoming:

The government never thought someone named Galati could defeat it, he says.“They were so arrogant in assuming that an argument from me couldn’t win or shouldn’t win, because we live in a tribal culture. You’re only an expert if you’re anglo or francophone.… That’s been made clear to me for 26 years. I’d put my win ratio in impossible cases up against anybody’s, yet I’m still ridiculed when I bring a challenge. How does that work?”

…. “Because of my sense of history, I don’t like the idea of injustice. Growing up in Toronto was no picnic in the sixties and seventies. It was a very brutal, racist environment. The police were enforcing wartime regulations. On College Street, up until Trudeau rewrote the loitering laws, more than two Italian males could not congregate. They’d get billy-sticked home by the police.”

Silence of his previous announcement that he would challenge the revocation provisions of the new Citizenship Act:

The lawyer who challenged the Harper government and won – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

ISIS betraying Muslims, says Calgary imam before hunger strike – Calgary

2014/08/25 Leave a comment

Consistent in his messaging and good both within the Muslim and broader communities:

Imam Syed Soharwardy, founder of Muslims Against Terrorism and the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, says he wants to draw attention to the actions of ISIS — a group of militants fighting for an Islamic state in the Middle East whose violent activities show they are not Muslims.

“The atrocity that is being carried out by ISIS is quite horrible. It’s quite inhumane. Its terrorism and in Canada they have successfully recruited more than 100 people to go and fight for them in Iraq and Syria,” Soharwardy said.

“I want to create awareness about the nature of their work — they are using Islam, they are quoting Quran, they look like Muslims, they pray like Muslims but they are not Muslim. They are deviant people, and they are doing exactly everything which goes against Islam.”

Soharwardy said he wants to make sure Muslim youth know that ISIS militants are not Muslims because many are being brainwashed by the terror group and other radical leaders.

ISIS betraying Muslims, says Calgary imam before hunger strike – Calgary – CBC News.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization, Religion Tagged with

Small towns hope to replace exodus to cities with new immigrants

2014/08/25 Leave a comment

A further reflection of the spread of diversity from the larger cities to further afield in Ontario. But still within the context of the “greater” GTA economic space:

“Recent settlement trends reveal that economic regions other than the GTA are receiving a larger share of Ontario immigrants and that the proportion of secondary migration to non-Census Metropolitan Areas is increasing,” according to a 2012 report from the Rural Ontario Institute.

Peel Region is a good example: Mississauga was always a hub for new Canadian but Brampton to its north has expanded rapidly over the last two decades because of new Canadians, reaching ever further into what was once agrarian land in the city’s north. Now that population is starting to head further out.

“This may reflect a combination of factors including that employment/income prospects, or housing affordability may in fact be relatively better in these regions and/or that increasing diversity in smaller communities is contributing to confidence that religious or cultural differences are less of a barrier to a sense of belonging than they once might have been perceived to be,” the report states.

Small towns hope to replace exodus to cities with new immigrants.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

What the Jihadists Who Bought Islam For Dummies on Amazon Tell Us About Radicalisation | Mehdi Hasan

2014/08/23 Leave a comment

More on radicalization in the UK (but applicable more universally). I also recommend the film Four Lions:

Sarwar and Ahmed, both of whom pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last month, purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies. You could not ask for better evidence to bolster the argument that the 1,400-year-old Islamic faith has little to do with the modern jihadist movement. The swivel-eyed young men who take sadistic pleasure in bombings and beheadings may try to justify their violence with recourse to religious rhetoric – think the killers of Lee Rigby screaming “Allahu Akbar” at their trial; think of Islamic State beheading the photojournalist James Foley as part of its “holy war” – but religious fervour isnt what motivates most of them.

In 2008, a classified briefing note on radicalisation, prepared by MI5s behavioural science unit, was leaked to the Guardian. It revealed that, “far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could . . . be regarded as religious novices.” The analysts concluded that “a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation”, the newspaper said.

For more evidence, read the books of the forensic psychiatrist and former CIA officer Marc Sageman; the political scientist Robert Pape; the international relations scholar Rik Coolsaet; the Islamism expert Olivier Roy; the anthropologist Scott Atran. They have all studied the lives and backgrounds of hundreds of gun-toting, bomb-throwing jihadists and they all agree that Islam isn’t to blame for the behaviour of such men and, yes, they usually are men.

Instead they point to other drivers of radicalisation: moral outrage, disaffection, peer pressure, the search for a new identity, for a sense of belonging and purpose. As Atran pointed out in testimony to the US Senate in March 2010: “. . . what inspires the most lethal terrorists in the world today is not so much the Quran or religious teachings as a thrilling cause and call to action that promises glory and esteem in the eyes of friends, and through friends, eternal respect and remembrance in the wider world”. He described wannabe jihadists as “bored, under­employed, overqualified and underwhelmed” young men for whom “jihad is an egalitarian, equal-opportunity employer . . . thrilling, glorious and cool”.

Or, as Chris Morris, the writer and director of the 2010 black comedy Four Lions – which satirised the ignorance, incompetence and sheer banality of British Muslim jihadists – once put it: “Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks.”[idiots]

What the Jihadists Who Bought Islam For Dummies on Amazon Tell Us About Radicalisation | Mehdi Hasan.

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with ,

A Conversation with Benjamin Zephaniah on Britishness

2014/08/22 Leave a comment

Sadia Habib’s interview with British writer, poet and professor with some interesting thoughts on identity, multiculturalism and the role of government, starting with on teaching Britishness:

I don’t like the idea. You can teach things about Britain, and that should be just a general part of education, but to teach British-ness… Now some people say a great symbol of Britishness is the Queen. I don’t. I think a great symbol of Britishness is all the people who have fought against monarchy… the Levellers… the people who fought for freedom… the suffragettes. That’s the tradition that fascinates me. I don’t say to the other people that your one is less important, if that is what you want to do, then let me do my one as well. So what version of Britishness are you teaching?

If you are going to teach it, you have to pick a version of Britishness.If you are the government, and you are telling people how to teach it in schools, you are going to teach one that suits the status quo. As part of your Britishness, are you going to teach about the British people that went to Amritsar and massacred innocent people? I guess most likely not. Are you going to romanticise that? Are your going to teach the real details of slavery? I know you may mention it, but as part of Britishness, as part of where we got where we got today?

Liverpool is part of Britain. Why are certain roads in Liverpool named after slave-drivers or slave-masters? Why have we got banks in this country that were started off during the slave trade and are a part of the great British establishment? Are you going to teach that? I think not. In their version of Britishness, they are probably going to teach that great comedy comes out of Liverpool, and there are banks, maybe on now and then they get it wrong, but on the whole they are alright as they will give you a mortgage eventually! They are going to teach a very sanitized version of the British institutions. So I don’t think you can teach Britishness. And all this stuff where foreigners are expected to swear allegiance to the Queen and all, I think it is bullshit! Sorry for using such words!

Some people are against state multiculturalism. I am as well, oddly enough, because the kind of multiculturalism I am talking about happens organically. I look at my band of musicians: I’ve got an Indian girl on percussion, I’ve got a Chinese guy in guitar, Jamaican, an African, and two English people. I just went out and looked for the best talent. That’s what I got. I remember the first time I met the Chinese guy, and I said to him play a lead piece for me, and he played the guitar, and it sounded kind of Chinese-y. And it was a lead. I said: “God! That’s really good!” One of the other people said: “Oh no, you are getting the tones wrong.” And I said “No, he’s getting them right. That’s working.” That’s what makes our music interesting. That’s what makes our culture interesting. That’s what makes our food interesting. So the kind of multiculturalism I am interested in is the one that happens organically, happens naturally.

A Conversation with Benjamin Zephaniah on Britishness The Sociological Imagination.

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Stephen Pollard: Appeasing the mob? That ain’t kosher

2014/08/22 Leave a comment

Pollard has a point:

In response to those protesters outside Sainsbury’s Holborn branch calling for a boycott of its Israeli goods, the manager ordered his staff to clear the shop of all its kosher goods. Clearly the manager is not the brightest spark in the firmament, since kosher produce — which is the only food observant Jews are allowed to eat — is not the same as Israeli produce which is simply food produced in Israel. The kosher produce in the shop was apparently made in the UK and Poland, and had never been near Israel.

It’s easy to imagine what went through the manager’s mind: “Israelis, Jews – heh, they’re all the same. Let’s just get rid of this stuff pronto and keep the protesters happy.” According to the witness whose Facebook posting of the empty shelves revealed the story, a staff member then defended the move, saying: “We support Free Gaza.”

…. Some hapless Sainsbury’s spokesperson issued a statement saying that the company was “an absolutely non-political organisation,” and went on: “It was an isolated decision made in a very challenging situation.”

Challenging. What a wonderful word that is, designed as a catch-all to excuse all sorts of inexcusable acts. So – given how challenging things are in Iraq at the moment – presumably Sainsbury’s will be removing all halal goods from its shelves because Islamic State is slaughtering Yazidis. No? You mean Sainsbury’s does not believe all British Muslims should be punished for the actions of a foreign body with which they have no connection?

Mistakes happen. But the way they are dealt with is usually more indicative of the way an organisation is run. And Sainsbury’s is refusing even to investigate the incident.

Stephen Pollard: Appeasing the mob? That ain’t kosher

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Canadian religious freedom ambassador Andrew Bennett says religious freedom violated in China

2014/08/22 Leave a comment

Not easy for this Government, as all governments, to balance economic interests with human rights concerns.

For the Conservative government, particularly challenging given their support, now muted, to Tibetans, their legitimate focus on issues relating to religious freedom and their overall anti-Communist regime framework:

“In China, unlike other parts of the world, religious freedom is being violated almost solely as a result of government restrictions.”​

“And that’s certainly a concern and an issue that we seek to raise with the Chinese,” Bennett told host Evan Solomon on Wednesday.

Under Canada’s long-standing “one China” policy, the Canadian government takes no position with regard to specific autonomy claims. But with religious freedom now a central tenet of Canada’s foreign policy, Bennett said it will take a stance when governments choose to discriminate on the basis of religion.

“In China right now, were seeing increasing state persecution of a variety of religious communities and this has been escalating over the last year or more.”

“For example, the case of China’s officials prohibiting Uighur Muslims from fasting during Ramadan. You know, this is completely unacceptable,” Bennett said.

“Now were seeing reports that the Chinese government wants to nationalize Christianity.”

Having Bennett do some early messaging will likely be followed by more discrete raising of the issues during the PM trip.

Interests are simply too serious to allow for “huff and puff” diplomacy.

Canadian ambassador Andrew Bennett says religious freedom violated in China – Politics – CBC News.

Filed under foreign policy, Religion Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →