Religion should be an elective course – Globe Editorial

2014/08/16 Leave a comment

Ongoing series of issues that emerge with funding of Catholic schools in Ontario:

In case there was any doubt, the Ontario Superior Court recently ruled the exemption not only applies to religious courses, but also to liturgies and retreats. The decision is a logical extension of the Education Act and earlier court rulings, and it makes a lot of sense. The primary purpose of a publicly funded school is to teach academics, not faith. Students attending publicly funded Catholic high schools are currently required to take four religion courses, one at each grade level. Any student, particularly those that are struggling academically, should have the right to forgo those classes to focus more on academics.

The trouble is some Catholic schools across the province won’t let them. Some boards claim, in a strange twist of discrimination, that their non-Catholic students are eligible for an exemption, but Catholic students aren’t. They are wrong. Forcing religious classes on any student amounts to a violation of the Education Act and willful ignorance of the recent Ontario Superior Court ruling. Catholic schools should follow the rules if they continue to rely on public funds to operate.

Religion should be an elective course – The Globe and Mail.

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Hindu bride and Jewish groom? Someone will bring them together

2014/08/11 Leave a comment

Good piece on how a number of congregations and faith leaders are responding to increased intermarriage and diversity. Some good vignettes that reflect the reality below:

Between 1991 and 2001, interfaith marriages and common-law partnerships across Canada increased from 15 to 19 per cent. Statistics Canada projects that by 2031, nearly 31 per cent of Torontonians will be non-Christian, up from approximately 21 per cent in 2006. As Toronto becomes less religiously homogenous as a city, more and more romantic partnerships will reflect that increased diversity.

In turn, religious organizations will be forced to consider the impact of these interfaith couples on their communities, and decide for themselves whether accommodating members with different beliefs poses an existential threat or, alternately, the very means to that community’s survival.

Hindu bride and Jewish groom? Someone will bring them together – The Globe and Mail.

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Don’t politicize women’s bodies

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

One take on the risks of banning the niqab. See also her previous piece (It’s Muslims themselves who give voice to verse) as well as a previous post on the CCMW study of Canadian women wearing the niqab and the individual stories and backgrounds of the women interviewed (Study dispels stereotypes about Ontario women who wear niqabs).

I still find that wearing the niqab (as distinct from the hijab) sends an anti-integration message:

In this context, it is especially important to put women first, to give women space to chart their own journeys, and to allow the veil and lack thereof to have meanings beyond their patriarchal origins.

Importantly, Muslim women ought to be free to make their own choices – which necessarily includes the right to make their own mistakes – as they navigate their way through multiple identities. As a woman who wore the niqab for 10 years in Canada through public high school at Streetsville Secondary School in Mississauga, and undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Toronto, I am grateful to have belonged to a liberal democracy that allowed me the space and time to have my own journey and find my own way. I am proud of Canadians for rejecting a copycat proposal to ban the face veil in Quebec earlier this year. In this instance, the EU has much to learn from the Canadian model.

Don’t politicize women’s bodies – The Globe and Mail.

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Progressive U.S. Muslim movement embraces gay and interfaith marriages, female imams and mixed prayers

2014/08/06 Leave a comment

On a progressive strain of Islam in the USA:

Nearly 40 per cent of the estimated 2.75 million Muslims in the U.S. are American-born and the number is growing, with the Muslim population skewing younger than the U.S. population at large, according to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey.

Advocates for a more tolerant Islam say the constraints on interfaith marriage and homosexuality aren’t in the Qur’an, but are based on conservative interpretations of Islamic law that have no place in the U.S. Historically, in many Muslim countries, there are instances of unsegregated prayers and interfaith marriage.

“I think it’s fair to say the traditional Islam that we experienced excluded a lot of Muslims that were on the margins. I always felt not very welcomed by the type of Islam my parents practiced,” said Tanzila Ahmed, 35, who published an anthology of love stories by Muslim American women in 2012 called “Love Inshallah.”

…. In Los Angeles, a religious group called Muslims for Progressive Values has been pushing the boundaries with a female imam who performs same-sex and interfaith marriages, support groups for gay Muslims and a worship style that includes women giving sermons and men and women praying together. The group has chapters in half a dozen major U.S. cities and at least six foreign countries and last year was recognized by the United Nations as an official non-governmental organization.

Founder Ani Zonneveld, a Muslim singer and songwriter of Malaysian descent, started the group in 2007 after she recorded some Islamic pop music that generated a backlash because it featured a Muslim woman singing.

“For us, the interpretation of Islam is egalitarian values — and by egalitarian it’s not just words that we speak. It’s practice,” she said. “It’s freedom of religion and from religion, too.”

Progressive U.S. Muslim movement embraces gay and interfaith marriages, female imams and mixed prayers

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Islam in Egypt: Manipulating the minarets | The Economist

2014/08/02 Leave a comment

The Economist on the clampdown in the mosques in Egypt:

The Muslim Brotherhood has called the government’s expanding control a “war on Islam”. But in the current climate of repression, and at a time when the Muslim Brotherhood is loathed by the army, the civil service and many ordinary Egyptians, there has been little protest. Secular opponents who have been outspoken against restrictions on activists in the past have been silent. Some Salafists, who tend not to speak out against the government, have grumbled, but most abide by the curbs.

Human-rights groups see good reason for all to be worried by the new restrictions. “This in effect kills the idea of religious freedom, since Egyptians can’t opt for any religious practice not approved of by the authorities,” says Mr Ezzat. It may be counter-productive, too. In the past, clamping down on the mosques has bred anger and forced hardliners underground. That is not what Egypt needs.

Islam in Egypt: Manipulating the minarets | The Economist.

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Robyn Urback: If you want to learn abstinence, go to church. Get Christian sex-ed out of secular public schools

2014/07/15 Leave a comment

A reminder of other forms of fundamentalism.

It is not just the anecdotes cited by Urback regarding the effectiveness of abstinence approaches; the contrast between California and Texas is striking (Texas Isn’t Keeping Up With National Drop in Teenage Births):

The Pregnancy Care Centre taught courses in about 60 Edmonton-area schools last year, according to executive director Norah Kennedy. She says that their presentations do not explicitly mention Christianity, though the Centre was founded on religious principles. “We are brought in to speak from an abstinence-based perspective; which differs from abstinence-only presentation,” she told the Edmonton Journal. “We present abstinence as the best and safest choice while also giving them a comprehensive overview of all of their options.”

That may be true (though the Dawsons’ complaints, which have yet to be proven, say otherwise). Even still, an abstinence-focused sexual education program will not offer the same wide-ranging, balanced approach to education that a class without an “agenda” can deliver. Indeed, there’s a difference between a lecturer telling students to use a condom if they must, and a lecturer showing students how to properly put on a condom, why they shouldn’t layer condoms (it happens, amazingly enough), why they should use a condom for both vaginal and anal sex (that happens in high school, too) and what to do if the condom breaks.

Students wanting to know about same-sex relationships, the morning after pill and other religious no-nos should also feel free to do so without judgment; that’s hard to do when someone from a faith-based organization is standing at the front of the class. This might be a human rights issue for Emily and her mom, but it’s arguably more an access to education issue for everyone else. Christian sex education should stay out of secular public schools.

The Edmonton School Board dropped the program offered by Pregnancy Care Centre following the complaint and publicity.

Robyn Urback: If you want to learn abstinence, go to church. Get Christian sex-ed out of secular public schools

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UK: Islamist terror threat to west blown out of proportion – former MI6 chief

2014/07/09 Leave a comment

Sensible and refreshing comments:

He made it clear he believed the way the British government and the media were giving the extremists the “oxygen of publicity” was counter-productive. The media were making monsters of “misguided young men, rather pathetic figures” who were getting coverage “more than their wildest dreams”, said Dearlove, adding: “It is surely better to ignore them.” …..

Dearlove said he was concerned about the influence of the media on the government’s security policy. It was time to take what he called a “more proportionate approach to terrorism”.

MI5, MI6, and GCHQ devoted a greater share of their resources to countering Islamist fundamentalism than they did to the Soviet Union during the cold war, or to Irish terrorism that had cost the lives of more UK citizens and British soldiers than al-Qaida had done, Dearlove noted.

A massive reaction after the 9/11 attacks was inevitable, he said, but it was not inevitable the 2001 attacks would continue to “dominate our way of thinking about national security”. There had been a “fundamental change” in the nature of the threat posed by Islamist extremists. Al-Qaida had largely failed to mount the kind of attacks in the US and UK it had threatened after 9/11.

It was time, he said to move away from the “distortion” of the post-9/11 mindset, make “realistic risk assessments” and think rationally about the causes of the crisis in the Middle East.

The al-Qaida franchises that had emerged since had largely “fallen back” on other Muslim countries, Dearlove said. What was happening now was a long-awaited war between Sunni and Shia Muslims that would have only a ripple effect on Britain, he suggested.

Pointing the finger at Sunni Saudi Arabia, Dearlove said the Isis surge in Iraq had to be the consequence of “sustained funding”.

Islamist terror threat to west blown out of proportion – former MI6 chief | UK news | The Guardian.

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Toronto-area Muslims working to change religion’s public perception

2014/07/05 Leave a comment

Interesting approach:

While last year’s inaugural campaign saw 85 ads run inside TTC cars and platforms, and focused on messages of compassion, this year’s, on station platform posters, will focus on practical advice. “We want to show that Islam is not just a religion in a mosque. It’s a way of life.”

One of the posters quotes the Prophet Mohammed as saying “Do not waste water even if you are standing at the banks of a flowing river.” Others cover finances, relationships, community, and health.While some have questioned the allocation of such funds toward what essentially amounts to PR, rather than toward charity efforts in Syria, for example, Ms. Kamal defended their focus by saying other organizations do that and she contributes, but Muslims also need to spend money on building a better community where they live.

“I shouldn’t just be caring about back home and forget about the land I’m staying in,” she said.

Toronto-area Muslims working to change religion’s public perception – The Globe and Mail.

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British jihadist warns of black flag of Islam over Downing Street

2014/07/05 Leave a comment

More on jihadists raised in the West and travelling to Syria and Iraq, along with efforts by imams to counter the jihadist message:

An open letter signed by more than 100 imams from across major theological backgrounds and cultural groups has urged British Muslim communities “to continue the generous and tireless effort to support all of those affected by the crisis in Syria and unfolding events in Iraq”, but to do so from the UK “in a safe and responsible way”.

The letter comes during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, but against a backdrop of tensions between the Middle East and the west.

…. Concerns have also been raised about homegrown involvement in terrorism after Britons appeared in a propaganda video for insurgent group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Isis.

Among them was aspiring jihadist Aseel Muthana, who told the BBC he was fighting in Syria and had no intention of returning to the UK.

…. The man told interviewer Nicky Campbell: “I have no intention of coming back to Britain because I have come to revive the Islamic khilafah. I dont want to come back to what I have left behind. There is nothing in Britain – it is just pure evil.

“If and when I come back to Britain it will be when this khilafah – this Islamic state – comes to conquer Britain and I come to raise the black flag of Islam over Downing Street, over Buckingham Palace, over Tower Bridge and over Big Ben.”

…..”The imams open letter read: “As the crisis in Syria and Iraq deepens, we the under-signed have come together as a unified voice to urge the British Muslim communities not to fall prey to any form of sectarian divisions or social discord.

“Ramadan, the month of mercy, teaches us the value of unity and perseverance and we urge the British Muslim communities to continue the generous and tireless efforts to support all of those affected by the crisis in Syria and unfolding events in Iraq, but to do so from the UK in a safe and responsible way.”

British jihadist warns of black flag of Islam over Downing Street | UK news | theguardian.com.

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Zarqa Nawaz: My hijab rebellion

2014/07/04 Leave a comment

A funny excerpt from her book (she was one of the starts in Little Mosque in the Prairie):

I had turned my faith into endless rules. They had given me structure. They had helped me torture my parents. And now they were being thrown back at me.

My father had heard enough. “My daughter is right. We have to be more flexible when it comes to faith. We can’t be extremists when it comes to Islam.”

And in one fell swoop, my father dismissed the meeting and said I could go to summer camp as long as I wanted. His relationship with Uncle Mahmood soured. But as far as my father was concerned, Uncle Mahmood was a crazed religious nutjob. Halal meat was as big an issue for my father as it was for Uncle Mahmood, but he ruled in my favour because he knew how much I loved summer camp.

In that moment, I decided not to take Islam so literally. Religion had been my weapon of choice to break my parents’ hearts. But then it came back and almost broke my heart. Maybe God had sent me a sign through those Chicken McNuggets — my parents were good Muslims and it wouldn’t kill me to become a little more like them. After all, even though I had a strange haircut and paraded around in my hijab like I was the pope, my father still stuck up for me because I was his little girl.

Zarqa Nawaz: My hijab rebellion

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