Outremont: The right to worship, and build, must apply to all

2016/11/26 Leave a comment

Yves Boisvert on the Outrement zoning referendum:

With large families, the community is slowly but surely expanding. Synagogues are jam packed. Rough winters and a religious prohibition to drive a car on Sabbath make it essential to find a nearby location.

Hasidic leaders expressed their disappointment over the referendum. They suspect the ban is a clear attempt at limiting their development, if not pushing them outside Outremont.

“We’re not talking about the Hasidic community,” Ms. Cinq-Mars said, insisting that the ban applies equally to all religious groups.

Meanwhile, just a few streets further east, the Mile-End/Plateau borough, where Mordecai Richler was born, seems to find accommodations easily with Hasidic leaders. There are 10 synagogues there and borough Mayor Luc Ferrandez says he only has to sit with leaders to find solutions and compromises. “They have the right to establish places of worship in their neighbourhood; you have to be very arrogant to deny them that right,” he told La Presse.

Indeed, a legal challenge is in the making. Fundamental rights cannot be cancelled by the majority rule. Even if it applies equally to all, the zoning effectively targets a very specific religious group. As French writer Anatole France famously said: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread.”

Source: Outremont: The right to worship, and build, must apply to all – The Globe and Mail

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Multiculturalism must be a two-way street | Hassan

2016/11/26 Leave a comment

Farzana Hassan makes valid points regarding the proposed Brossard Muslim housing development (the local mosque does not support such segregation), although it is not unique to Islam: fundamentalists from all religions generally demand more accommodation, and be less open and tolerant:

Even the issues of living space and location have an ethical dimension. Is it socially desirable to allow the creation of religious, cultural and ethnic enclaves and ghettoes, such as the one proposed for one hundred Muslim families in the suburbs of Montreal, or would such localities defeat the very idea of multiculturalism?

The Quebec plan does just the opposite. By definition, any enclave designed to house a community with a shared background proliferates monoculturalism.

The idea was reportedly inspired by the desire to have interest-free housing for Muslims concerned about violating sharia regulations on usury. To that end, solutions, some of which in essence are the same as any other mortgage plans, have already been proposed and implemented.

But using some religious pretext to shut out non-Muslims from a housing development is not the answer. Many Canadian mosques have already instituted culturally acceptable banking systems.

Nabil Warda, the Montreal developer who proposed the project, has stated the following: “Nowhere is it written: ‘Listen guys, we don’t want any nasty Québécois or Canadians in this place.’ We never said that. We never intended that. It is not even my way of thinking.” Nevertheless, the very existence of such an enclave would be exclusionary.

It is time spokespeople from some immigrant communities take a hard look at likely repercussions of their own actions. When Canadians have to endure this housing proposal and the upcoming “Reviving the Islamic Spirit” conference – a gathering to promote orthodox belief – it is hardly surprising that political leaders like Kellie Leitch call for a Canadian values test for immigrants.

Tolerance of “the other”, even in an avowedly multicultural society like Canada, must be limited.

As surely as we cannot possibly tolerate polygamy or the mistreatment of women, we cannot approve of discriminatory housing. Such actions cause rancor with host societies and ultimately make victims of immigrants themselves.

While most Canadian Muslims are well integrated into Canadian society and are happy to interact with other Canadians, fundamentalists and Islamists continue to draw justified negative press through their outrageous demands for faith accommodations.

They withdraw from the multicultural process by locking themselves up from the outside world. Whether it is exemptions from music class for their children, or creating their own sharia-compliant silos, these fundamentalists insist on imposing their inflexible mores on others.

Fundamentalists asserting these rights on the basis of Charter freedoms must assert whatever cultural identities they have within a common context and participate in the multicultural experience without reservation.

To be candid, this is an Islamist issue. I see no devout Hindus, Sikhs, Jews or Christians seeking such far-reaching faith accommodations.

Source: Multiculturalism must be a two-way street | Hassan | Columnists | Opinion | Toro

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Quebec woman told to remove hijab in court appeals for legal clarification on right to wear religious attire

2016/11/25 1 Comment

Hard to imagine her not winning this appeal. The hijab is not the niqab where the Supreme Court, in a convoluted ruling, stated should be case-by-case (Supreme Court niqab ruling: Veil can be worn to testify in some cases):

A Montreal woman who was told to remove her hijab by a judge is appealing a ruling that declined to clarify whether Quebecers have a right to wear religious attire in court, her lawyer said Wednesday.

Rania El-Alloul had sought a legal clarification from Quebec Superior Court after she was denied an appearance in a lower court because she was wearing a hijab.

Superior Court Justice Wilbrod Décarie ruled last month that the Quebec court judge’s decision went against the principles of Canadian law protecting freedom of religion.

But he also said that although El-Alloul’s treatment was regrettable, he could not guarantee she would be allowed to wear her hijab during future court appearances.

“Each case must be evaluated in light of the context that exists during the witness’s appearance,” he wrote in his decision.

On Wednesday, one of El-Alloul’s lawyers said this case-by-case approach creates insecurity for his client and anyone else who may need to access the justice system while wearing religious attire.

“She would have to be worried every time whether she’d be heard or not, which might induce her to settle cases she shouldn’t settle or not to go to court,” Julius Grey said in a phone interview.

Grey also believes Décarie erred when he ruled it was out of his jurisdiction to make a declaration on whether all litigants have the right to wear religious attire in court.

“When you have a Charter issue, the procedure should not have the effect of depriving someone of their rights,” he said.

A judge refused to hear El-Alloul’s case against the province’s auto insurance board in February 2015 because of her attire.

El-Alloul refused to remove her hijab and the case was put off. It was ultimately settled when the car was returned.

In a statement, El-Alloul said she wanted more than just confirmation the judge had been wrong.

“It isn’t enough that I have been vindicated,” she said. “It’s so important that the successful resolution of my case ensures that no one is ever humiliated the way I was and deprived of their rights.”

Grey said the appeal likely won’t be heard until late 2017.

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Ban on new places of worship upheld in Montreal’s Outremont borough – Montreal – CBC News

2016/11/24 Leave a comment

The ongoing debates in Outrement between a conservative religious community and others:

Citizen groups on both sides had both produced flyers to make their case and turnout in advance polls last weekend was high.

The bylaw was introduced in 2015, not long after the borough approved a permit for a synagogue on Bernard.

Not long after, the borough decided to pass a law banning all new places of worship on two key arteries, Bernard Avenue and Laurier Avenue, with the aim of creating “winning conditions” for local businesses.

The Laurier ban wasn’t contested and the other major street, Van Horne Avenue, has had a similar ban since the late 1990s.

A vote in favour of the Bernard ban would therefore effectively block any new synagogues in the borough.

The business case

Several merchants have come out in favour of the ban, arguing another place of religious worship would hurt business.

Francine Brulée, co-owner of the Les Enfants Terribles, a high-end bistro on Bernard, said many people in the Hasidic community don’t frequent her restaurant or other businesses in the area.

“They do their own things and that’s OK,” she said. “But if there’s more and more and more, the other stores and the other restaurants will suffer, I think.”

However, Mindy Pollak, the first and only Hasidic Jew to be elected to city council, said the pro-business argument “just doesn’t hold water.”

She pointed to Parc Avenue, located just outside the Outremont borough boundary, where synagogues recently opened up on a “block that was completely abandoned and neglected before. So obviously, not bad for commercial use.”

Long history in Outremont

This isn’t the first time Outremont, which is home to a large and wealthy francophone population, has been the site of conflict with the Hasidic community.

In the past, the community has engaged in battles with Outremont council over the use of charter buses in residential streets and the placement of the eruv, the symbolic enclosure made of string used to carry items on the Sabbath.

In 2006, news that the neighbourhood YMCA had switched to frosted windows to obscure Hasidic students’ view of women in exercise wear spurred a debate over the reasonable accommodation of minorities which has never quite subsided.

Earlier this year, a Hasidic school near Outremont was raided by youth protection officials because of concern it was not following the provincial curriculum.

Louis Rousseau, a religious studies professor at University of Quebec in Montreal, said it will be difficult to find a solution that satisfies everyone.

“A referendum is supposed to be the democratic solution, but it’s clear not everyone will be happy with the result,” he said.

Source: Ban on new places of worship upheld in Montreal’s Outremont borough – Montreal – CBC News

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Douglas Todd: Are schools pushing aboriginal, ‘Buddhist’ spirituality? | Vancouver Sun

2016/11/22 Leave a comment

Good analysis, commentary and recommendation, slightly different take to the  column posted earlier (Ashley Csanady: Indigenous prayers in the classroom and all-Muslim suburbs are equally dangerous attacks on our secular society).

That being said, I am a great fan of mindfulness, as have found that useful in both my professional life (being more aware of my internal biases) and during my cancer treatments:

The aboriginal blessings and mindfulness exercises, while fine in themselves, inject a confusing shot of religion into academia, given many scholars would revolt if a university event began with prayer rooted in Christianity, Judaism or Islam.

What’s a way forward?

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Mackenzie ruled in 1999 that public education should be “strictly secular,” which he interpreted to mean it should not show favoritism to one religion over another. Beyond that, he said, schools should be ”pluralist,” or ”inclusive in the widest sense.”

Canadian religion professor John Stackhouse believes the B.C. parents objecting to having aboriginal spirituality and mindfulness imposed on their children have a case — and that the public-school system has “crossed a line.”

Just as there is no place for the Christian practice of baptism in public schools, Stackhouse says there is no room for aboriginal smudging or Buddhist-based mindfulness. And rather than creating the awkwardness of students opting in or out, he believes educators should just not invite participation in such practices.

There is a third approach.

Like many, including myself and the B.C. Humanist Association, Stackhouse believes schools should teach far more world-religion courses, so students can learn, in age-appropriate ways, about a variety of spiritual observances and worldviews, from Catholicism to Confucianism.

That should also fit with the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which recommended doing more to educate students about aboriginal traditions.

The actual practice of such rituals, however, is probably best reserved to individuals, families and spiritual communities.

Source: Douglas Todd: Are schools pushing aboriginal, ‘Buddhist’ spirituality? | Vancouver Sun

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Churches that grow tend to adhere to conservative theology, researchers say

2016/11/21 Leave a comment

Interesting study:

What St. Paul’s has in common with many other growing churches is that it takes what scholars describe as a more conservative approach to the Bible.

Conservative in this context is defined as taking a more literal interpretation of scripture and a greater openness to the idea that God intervenes in the world.

For years, scholars have tended to view the decline in religious attendance in the mainline Protestant churches as being unrelated to theology. But researchers David Haskell of Wilfrid Laurier University and his colleagues Kevin Flatt and Stephanie Burgoyne say that is not the case. The churches that grow tend to be those that adhere to conservative theology, the researchers say.

“What we found is that the conservative theological positioning of clergy and attendees is a significant predictor of numerical church growth,” Prof. Haskell said.

The researchers surveyed pastors and congregants in mainline Protestant churches in Southern Ontario – Anglicans, Presbyterians, Evangelical Lutherans and the United Church. They separated those churches into those in decline and those whose attendance has grown more than 2 per cent a year for 10 years.

Those in the growing churches are significantly more likely than those at the ones in decline to agree with statements such as “Jesus rose from the dead with a real, flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb,” and “God performs miracles in answer to prayer.” They’re also more likely to pray and read the Bible daily, the researchers found.

Another interesting finding is the growing churches tend to innovate in the service. They are more likely to feature contemporary worship, with music that includes drums and guitars, while declining parishes often had the traditional organ and choir.

“These mainline churches that have conservative Protestant doctrine are like a peach: really easy to get into. They’re playing contemporary music, it’s family friendly, the pastor dresses in casual clothes, but there’s a hard core at the centre,” Prof. Haskell said. “The declining churches were more like a coconut. From the outside hard to access, and then once you were in, there really wasn’t anything in the middle. This is the impression we got from the criticisms of people who had left.”

Congregants at growing churches, frequently referred to their mission as evangelism.

Members of declining churches more often said their mission was the pursuit of social justice. Congregants tended to be about two-thirds over the age of 60 and their leaders tended to be slightly older than those of the growing churches.

Only 50 per cent of pastors in declining parishes agreed that it was very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians, compared with 100 per cent among the growing churches.

Trying to explain why, in an increasingly secular society, some congregations grow and others shrink, is of importance to these groups. Attendance at most of the mainline churches has dropped by half since a peak in the mid-1960s, while the Canadian population has doubled, Prof. Haskell said.

Those that are growing seem to have success attracting adherents with a mix of evangelism and openness.

“When one’s doctrine reinforces a fairly literal interpretation of the Bible – and you take scripture like, ‘Go into all the world and make disciples’fairly literally, you’re going to be more inclined and motivated to use any number of innovative strategies to make the faith accessible,” Prof. Haskell said.

Source: Churches that grow tend to adhere to conservative theology, researchers say – The Globe and Mail

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Ashley Csanady: Indigenous prayers in the classroom and all-Muslim suburbs are equally dangerous attacks on our secular society

2016/11/19 2 Comments

Good column by Csanady although I do think there is a place, in a secular system, for comparative religion courses to help students understand the diversity of cultures and beliefs (as in Quebec):

Teaching kids about smudging ceremonies, and giving them the chance to participate in one, is a fine idea. As a fence-sitting agnostic, I have and it was great and calming and I really appreciated the openness of the First Nations community that offered it. But I also have friends who grew up in much more dogmatic households than mine, who would have broken into tears at being asked — nay forced — to do something against their religion. I considered the ceremony more spiritual than religious, but not everyone feels this way, and to suggest it’s not religious is actually an insult to its indigenous culture.

 The most infuriating thing about this debate in B.C. isn’t the details of the challenge itself, however, but the maddening knee-jerk left-wing reaction. The argument is less about religious freedom and secularism, but about a mother supposedly trying to “ban indigenous ceremonies in schools,” as a Guardian headline screamed.

Just as kids shouldn’t be required to all sing religious Christmas carols, nor should they be forced to recite another religions prayer or be anointed under its practices.

The mother isn’t trying to ban the ceremonies. Again, the issue is choice. Creating a prayer room for Muslim students, or ensuring Jewish students can miss class on Yom Kippur, or letting Hindu kids bring in treats on Diwali, are reasonable measures. But just as kids shouldn’t be required to sing religious Christmas carols, nor should they be forced to recite another religion’s prayer or be anointed under its practices. A multicultural society means freedom of religion and balancing competing rights.

Which brings us to the other troubling story in the news this week: a proposal to build a Muslim-based community in Quebec.

The organizer, Nabil Warda, has said his intent was to give Muslim families a chance at homeownership without paying interest, something that’s forbidden under certain interpretations of the Quran. And he has admitted maybe he should have called it “humanistic” instead of “Muslim,” to avoid the backlash.

Given there are many Orthodox Jewish communities in the U.S. and other predominantly Muslim suburbs in Ontario and Alberta, this should end the debate. Cultural communities have always taken space for their religion and people. Ethnic, religious and cultural communities that evolve over time are part of a diverse country.

What makes the Muslim community proposal offensive is the strictures that would be in place. As my colleague Graeme Hamilton notes, Warda has been explicit that Muslim cultural norms would be imposed, even in the public spaces in the community: “You don’t drive drunk on the street. If you want to drink alcohol, you drink it in your house,” Warda said.

“Women could choose whether to wear the headscarf but they could not walk around in a halter-top and shorts,” Hamilton reports.

There are already public intoxication and anti-drunk driving laws in Canada. And last time I checked, indecency under the criminal code only requires the teensiest bikini to pass muster. Since when does “humanism” not include women?

Imagine if this were an orthodox Christian community, like the ones in B.C. and Utah where women are forced to cover up and daughters are traded like chattel. For some reason, I think there’d be more outrage from the left. But the second it’s a Muslim community, it’s immune to criticism from the far-left, lest a rational secular argument be deemed Islamophobic.

Women in Canada should be able to wear whatever they want in public. I support a woman wearing a burqa on a public beach just as much as I do a bikini. If a temple or a church requires them to cover up or undress upon entry, that’s their right. But it’s also women’s right not to have religious requirements imposed on them in public spaces — including the municipal roads and sidewalks in a proposed suburb.

So too do children have a right to be free from religion during their public education. A religion is a religion is a religion. It doesn’t matter if it’s indigenous or Abrahamic in origin— it has no place in the public sphere or in the public classroom.

Source: Ashley Csanady: Indigenous prayers in the classroom and all-Muslim suburbs are equally dangerous attacks on our secular society | National Post

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Women’s Rights Become A Battleground For Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Jews : NPR

2016/11/18 Leave a comment

Continuing religious radicalization in Israel:

Four years ago, a lawsuit was filed by an Orthodox feminist group called Kolech, which means “Your Voice” in the Hebrew feminine. It was one of the biggest class-action lawsuits in Israeli history, and it targeted what was then an all-male, ultra-Orthodox radio station called Kol Barama, founded in 2009.

“There were no women interviewing. You wouldn’t be able to hear a woman on this radio channel,” says Kolech’s executive director, Yael Rockman. “Not only that. This radio channel is not private. They get money from the government. ”

The discrimination lawsuit went all the way to Israel’s highest court, and in late 2014, the women won.

With a birth rate double that of the national average, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community is growing — and so is its political power. Feminists are girding for more legal battles over women’s rights.

In recent years, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox have lobbied to omit women’s faces from advertisements on the side of Jerusalem buses that circulate in religious areas. During recent Jewish holidays, signs appeared in a religious neighborhood of Jerusalem, Mea Sharim, instructing women to keep off the main road and use side streets for the sake of modesty.

“Radicalization is getting worse, for sure. At the same time, the vision of equal rights, equal participation and women’s power — all of that is getting stronger around the world,” says gender sociologist Elana Sztokman, author of a book called The War on Women in Israel.

Despite the feminists’ legal victory against Kol Barama, Sztokman believes not enough is being done to protect women. She says that because the ultra-Orthodox tend to vote as a homogeneous bloc, they have achieved disproportionate political power and the Israeli government caters to them in an unprecedented way.

Until now, “Jews have never gone to the government authority and said, ‘Let’s make sure that the public spaces fit the needs of our most radical views on women, because it offends our most extreme strict men,'” Sztokman says. “That has never happened until Israel [in the] 21st century.”

Source: Women’s Rights Become A Battleground For Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Jews : Parallels : NPR

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Developer behind ‘Muslim housing project’ in Montreal says anyone with shared values welcome

2016/11/17 Leave a comment

The latest political debate over integration in Quebec, where PM Couillard has appropriately rejected such separate housing developments:

At a time when restricting religious attire is a recurring theme in Quebec political debate and when some municipalities have blocked proposals for new mosques, the proposed housing project could be seen as a defensive gesture.

But Warda said that is not the case.

“I didn’t hear people say, ‘OK, we have to go and defend ourselves against these nasty Québécois by going and living alone.’ That is not at all my motivation,” he said in an interview.

What he has heard are people who have been renting for 30 years and wish they had something to show for all the money. Although views differ about what Shariah law dictates for Muslims living in a society where mortgages are the norm, many refuse to take out loans that charge interest.

“A lot of Muslims have problems with the idea of interest, which in Arabic is called riba,” Warda said. “That means if you pay more than you were loaned, you are doing something that is very, very, very, very bad from the Muslim point of view.”

He said interest can be circumvented thorough an arrangement in which a house is bought by the bank and then the resident buys it back over time, paying a premium that is considered the bank’s profit, and not interest.

“Let us call it a technicality, for me as an accountant, but for the believers it is not a technicality,” Warda said. Similar arrangements have been used at Muslim housing developments in Ontario and Alberta.

We are here in Canada. We came of our own will. Our intention was not to come to isolate ourselves from society

He said non-Muslims would be welcome to move into his project of prefabricated homes, but they would have to share the values of their Muslim neighbours.

“You don’t drive drunk on the street. If you want to drink alcohol, you drink it in your house,” he said. Women could choose whether to wear the headscarf but they could not walk around in a halter-top and shorts.

“There must be some modesty in the way you dress. We don’t want women living there going half-naked down the streets. We don’t like that,” he said. “If they want to do that, let them go and live in downtown Montreal.”

He has scheduled a meeting Friday evening at the Brossard mosque, the Islamic Community Centre of South Shore, to see if there are enough takers. He said he needs a critical mass of 50 potential buyers before the land can be purchased.

But he has heard opposition closer to home, including from the imam of the Brossard mosque, Foudil Selmoune.

“We are here in Canada. We came of our own will,” Selmoune said in an interview. “Our intention was not to come to isolate ourselves from society or from the community.” He said it would be more constructive for Warda to use his financing proposal to help Muslims buy existing homes rather than creating a Muslim neighbourhood.

The social climate in Quebec can be difficult for Muslims, Selmoune acknowledged.

“It doesn’t mean we have to hide ourselves and get away from the challenges we are going through,” he said. “We have to face them.”

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Jordan Tones Down Textbooks’ Islamic Content, and Tempers Rise – The New York Times

2016/10/17 Leave a comment

Interesting article on one of the challenges facing Jordan:

When Jordan’s school year began last month, educators began noticing tweaks in the curriculum.

Along with the images of women wearing head scarves were a few who went without them. Cleanshaven men appeared alongside drawings of devout, bearded ones. And references to Islam, once sprinkled liberally throughout textbooks and other class materials, were scaled back.

The 70 or so tweaks to Jordan’s textbooks for first through 12th grades are small. The books are still laden with Islamic references: The 10th-grade science text, for example, encourages students to marvel over God’s creation as it discusses evolution.

But they are one of the Middle East’s first noticeable efforts to moderate the school curriculum in hopes of preventing youths from drifting to extreme ideologies.

“It could be a test case for the region,” said Musa Shteiwi, a sociologist who sat on an Education Ministry committee for six months last year to change the textbooks. “All of us in the Arab world have the same problems. We are all entering this battle.”

So far, this modest effort has not gone well. Islamists see it as a threat to their traditional domination of the education system. And among Jordan’s mostly conservative Muslim population, many view the changes as a declaration of war on Islamic values.

“Obama and Clinton’s schools are not for us!” shouted Mahmoud Abu Rakhiya, an Islamist in Maan, a desert town in southern Jordan, at a rally on a recent Friday in late September. In the capital, Amman, around the same time, teachers set a pile of textbooks on fire. A woman in a white face veil shouted: “We don’t need these textbooks anyway! We will teach them what we want!”

Even those who support changes to the curriculum say the government bungled the effort. Jumana Ghunaimat, the editor in chief of Al Ghad, a liberal newspaper that campaigned for a new curriculum, said the changes, introduced without public debate, had antagonized conservative Jordanians.

“I fear that this will not bring positive change,” Ms. Ghunaimat said.

She added, “And today we are in a hard place,” referring to growing fears of extremist violence in Jordan.

The curriculum changes are part of the balancing act that Jordan’s monarchy has long attempted to appease its conservative citizens; the United States, a loyal ally that provides crucial aid; its noisy secular elite; and its influential Christian minority. (Even as the government issued the new textbooks, it arrested a Jordanian writer, Nahed Hattar, for sharing a cartoon on Facebook that many saw as mocking God. Mr. Hattar, 56, a prominent writer from a Christian family, was fatally shot when he showed up at a courthouse on Sept. 25 to face criminal charges of insulting Islam.)

The problem with the previous Jordanian curriculum, advocates for change said, was that Islam dominated every subject, without teaching children about the shared humanity of non-Muslims, including other Jordanian citizens. For instance, Jordanians are taught, “You are a Muslim, and therefore you are moral,” said Oraib al-Rantawi, director general of Al Quds Center for Political Studies, which argued for revisions. “So the question is, what of others? Non-Muslims? Are they moral?”

Source: Jordan Tones Down Textbooks’ Islamic Content, and Tempers Rise – The New York Times

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