Hashmi, Delic and Sherazi: Muslim families concerned about Pride activities in Ottawa schools deserve a voice

2023/06/28 Leave a comment

Bit of a stretch to make a parallel to colonial mindsets with respect to Indigenous peoples but a policy and practical challenge as most multiculturalism issues are in fact religious diversity issues, and involve assessing what is reasonable accommodation:

A few days before the start of June, our inboxes started filling up with messages from parents in our communities who were concerned about what their children would be taught during Pride month. They had contacted their children’s schools but were told there was a no opt-out policy in effect because participating in Pride month activities was a human rights issue.

The federal government describes human rights as “how we instinctively expect to be treated as persons. They define what we are all entitled to — a life of equality, dignity and respect, to live free from discrimination and harassment.”

When some Muslims felt their parental rights taken from them and their dignity dwindling, many decided to keep their children home on the first day of June.

When the influx of messages became so great, we created an online form to allow parents to share their concerns.

The results were disheartening. Of just under 500 responses, almost 30 per cent reported that their child had either been targeted for being a Muslim, had been taught age-inappropriate material or had their religious rights infringed upon. Another 22 per cent said they weren’t sure.

Parents shared stories about children being berated for being absent, being told they were ungrateful for having Ramadan recognized in school and being forced to attend Pride month activities. From a child being penalized with no recess for not wanting to colour in a rainbow in grade 3, to another child in junior kindergarten being asked whether she would like to be male or female, the anecdotal evidence piled up. Others reported that teachers debated religious beliefs with students to the point where the students felt targeted.

Multiple parents reported that a teacher at a Kanata school distributed a booklet to students in her Grade 5/6 class that specifically targeted Muslim students in her class, promoting the very practices and beliefs that most Muslim families find objectionable.

In one alarming incident, staff stood at the doors during an assembly to ensure no one left and even searched the parking lot for students. The irony that this took place during National Indigenous History Month should not be lost on us.

While the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has committed to — and indeed has made great strides in — fostering a safe and inclusive environment for all students, these experiences suggest there is much more to be done.

Concerns raised by parents about Pride don’t have to do with LGBTQ+ individuals. Not one parent suggested that Pride should not be celebrated. They simply had reservations about their own children’s participation in the celebrations.

Cross-dressing and changing one’s birth gender are forbidden under mainstream Islamic teachings, as they are in some other religions, except in rare cases where there is physiological evidence to justify such a change. Active participation in activities and celebrations, whether it be a celebration of same-sex relationships, pre-marital relationships, or those involving alcohol, are largely understood to be prohibited by many Muslims.

For many parents, having their children stay home was a civil way of registering their helplessness in the face of a system that did not want to listen.

Stomping on Pride flags and other such actions are explicitly prohibited in Islamic teachings and we were quick to denounce such hurtful acts in protests. However, we are deeply concerned that our youth and some parents are being contacted by extreme right-wing groups interested in having our community be the so-called champions of this cause. People who are unheard and who feel frustrated are vulnerable to the whisperings of extremists.

We sincerely hope lessons can be learned from what has occurred to prevent it from happening again. For our part, we are committed to continuing our denunciations of hate and bullying against LGBTQ+ people, speaking out against dehumanization, and condemning disrespectful acts. Principled disagreements must not lead to hate, bigotry or disrespect.

The school board will need to calm fears, through the development of clear procedures for staff on how to navigate cases of gender dysphoria and nonconformity with age-appropriate care and professionalism. Parents need to be a part of those discussions, not an afterthought.

Recognizing that gender identity and sexual orientation are deeply personal matters, and that people choose to approach them in different ways, can help all students feel included without any judgments on personal choices or beliefs as well as help rebuild lost trust.

Raising awareness about the struggles people face, and sharing their lived experiences and histories, is an important part of fighting hate and intolerance. Both LGBTQ+ communities and Muslim communities face discrimination and hatred. But history has shown that when ideas are forced upon people, the effort often backfires and causes more damage. If our government is serious about human rights meaning living a life free of discrimination, Muslim parents and students need to stop being treated as haters.

As National Indigenous History Month comes to a closing, we would do well to remember the tremendous harm caused by teachers with colonial mindsets, demeaning the traditional and ancestral beliefs of children while isolating them from their parents. It would be wise for our public school system to not repeat similar mistakes.

Sikander Hashmi serves as imam in Kanata. Zijad Delic serves as imam in Barrhaven. Aisha Sherazi is a local writer and educator. The authors are part of the Muslim Leaders Working Group liaising with the OCDSB on this issue.

Source: Hashmi, Delic and Sherazi: Muslim families concerned about Pride activities in Ottawa schools deserve a voice

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We Muslims Used to Be the Culture War Scapegoats. Why Are Some of Us Joining the L.G.B.T.Q. Pile-On?

2023/06/24 Leave a comment

Good question:

The political right’s exhausting and cruel war on “wokeness” is now aligning with the efforts of some Muslim Americans to attack the L.G.B.T.Q. community under the guise of protecting religious freedoms and parental rights.

After enduring a gantlet of scapegoating after 9/11, you’d think we Muslims would have learned.

As a practicing Muslim American raising three children, I don’t find it in conflict with my faith to recognize that in a pluralistic, democratic society, all our communities must be able to live with security, dignity and freedom, even when there are profound differences on certain issues.

Last month a group of Muslim scholars and preachers published a joint statement titled “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam.” In the name of helping families, the statement reiterates what is considered by many scholars to be traditional Islamic views on homosexuality but trades compassion, political foresight and pastoral care in favor of fear, panic and legalistic double talk.

It says that “there is an increasing push to promote L.G.B.T.Q.-centric values among children through legislation and regulations, disregarding parental consent and denying both parents and children the opportunity to express conscientious objection.” It appears to uncritically accept the zero-sum notion, pushed by right-wing politicians, that acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community comes at the expense of giving up religious freedoms. It seems oblivious to the reality that if you replaced “L.G.B.T.Q.-centric” with “Shariah,” it would mimic the sentiments that have often been directed at devout Muslims in our country.

It’s also remarkable that so many religious leaders came together to speak with one voice on this particular issue, which one could falsely assume from the current political hysteria is the leading threat facing children. But as anyone who’s been part of recent debates within broader Muslim American communities knows, you’d probably never get this kind of concerted public statement from Muslim leaders on the issue of gun violence — the leading cause of death for American children — or climate change, which ultimately threatens all life. Somehow, though, this issue has managed to rally an array of Muslim scholars.

In Montgomery County, Md., outside Washington, D.C., the group Moms for Liberty, which has been designated an extremist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has united with some Muslim parents who are protesting that the public school system no longer allows their children to opt out of reading books with L.G.B.T.Q. stories. “It’s not bigoted to want a safe space for all children, nor is it bigoted to provide reasonable accommodations to those with sincerely held religious beliefs,” says Raef Haggag, a Montgomery County public school parent and former high school teacher. When we exchanged emails, he told me that Muslim parents in Montgomery County had never called for a book ban, but that he believed an opt-out option would reflect parental rights and also be a reflection of “genuine tolerance, inclusivity and religious freedom.”

But is it truly inclusive and tolerant to signal to L.G.B.T.Q. kids or L.G.B.T.Q. parents that simply reading a book or learning about their existence might be so threatening and offensive that it requires an opt-out option in schools? How would Muslim parents feel if this was applied to children’s books about Ramadan or hajj?

Kareem Monib, a Muslim parent and a founder of the opt-out group Coalition of Virtue, recently appeared on Fox News and bonded with the host Laura Ingraham over what they saw as their fight for religious freedoms, apparently forgiving Ingraham for her past anti-Muslim bigotry: “Five years ago, Laura was saying we shouldn’t have Muslims in this country,” Mr. Monib told Semafor, “Now she’s saying: Thank God, the Muslims are here!” He seems to be referring to comments Ms. Ingraham made eight years ago, but either way, the irony is lost on him.

Muslims have also joined this campaign in Hamtramck, Mich., which has an all-Muslim City Council. Last week the council voted unanimously to bar Pride flags from being displayed on city properties — apparently forgetting that their Muslim immigrant forebears faced discrimination when they arrived in the city.

The increasing political demonization of L.G.B.T.Q. Americans is following the same script that has been used to marginalize Muslims and drum up fears about the supposed dangers of Shariah finding its way into the American legal system, all to pander to a constituency that is terrified of pluralism.

Let’s take a DeLorean back to the post-9/11 years, during which Islam, especially the specter of Shariah, was frequently made the villain.

Much like the recent deliberate efforts to mischaracterize critical race theory, Shariah was deliberately misdefined as a legal-political-military doctrine and the pre-eminent totalitarian threat of our time. Thanks to a well-funded right-wing machine, Shariah became a litmus test for Muslim American citizens to prove their moderation and loyalty.

In 2011 the presidential aspirant Herman Cain said he wouldn’t appoint a Muslim to his potential administration or the federal courts because he feared they would “force their Shariah law onto the rest of us.” In 2015, Ben Carson echoed those talking points, saying he wouldn’t support a Muslim American for president unless he or she renounced Shariah. Ultimately, Donald Trump ran on a Muslim ban and put in place a modified travel ban with the help of the Supreme Court. By 2017, according to one report, over 200 anti-Shariah bills had popped up in 43 states over nearly a decade, based on trumped-up claims that Islamic law was infiltrating the U.S. judicial system.

Compare all that with now: Before the 2024 elections, the L.G.B.T.Q. community has emerged as the boogeyman du jour. Right-wing media and G.O.P. elected officials are routinely accusing liberals of being groomers. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently said that transgender people are “sexual predators,” and the Texas G.O.P.’s new platform explicitly rejects trans identity and refers to homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle choice.” In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his “Don’t Say Gay” law by saying his critics support “sexualizing kids in kindergarten.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump, who remains the Republican front-runner for 2024, said that providing gender-affirming care to minors was equal to “child abuse.” As a result of this ginned-up hate, there are over 520 anti-L.G.B.T.Q. bills that have been introduced in state legislatures, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Now that queer Americans are being singled out, why are some Muslims so willing to go along?

We often forget that there are people whose lives are directly affected by these hateful words, statements and policies. I reached out to several L.G.B.T.Q. Muslims to ask them if they had any words for fellow Muslims who are supporting the right wing’s political attacks on L.G.B.T.Q. literature, rights and identities. “Don’t let Islamophobes and evangelical Christians vying for political power dictate the contours of your Islam,” Ramish Nadeem and Hanan Jabril, young Muslim activists, wrote in an emailed statement. “Is learning about L.G.B.T.Q.+ people, who do exist in the world we live in and even in our Muslim traditions, really gonna harm your kids’ faith? Is your Islam really that fragile that it must lead with exclusion, isolation and hate instead of mercy, openness and community?”

As Muslims in America, we have the capacity to be true to our faith and to embrace our neighbors — including members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community who may not share all our beliefs. And as citizens aware of how we’ve been treated, we should have better recognition of how the scapegoating of people for their sexual orientation or gender identity is a play from an old divide-and-conquer playbook. As the Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently wrote, “Nothing drives conservatives to reach out to groups they once feared as much as another group that they fear even more.”

As a Muslim parent, I understand how difficult it is to raise our children in a political environment that still views them as perpetual suspects because of their religion and, in many cases, their skin color. However, we still have religious freedoms in this country that allow us to live our lives according to our values, even if they aren’t shared by the majority.

Ultimately, living in a pluralistic society requires reciprocity and respect, even if we occasionally make one another uncomfortable. It’s hypocritical, shortsighted and cruel for Muslims to align with hateful forces targeting vulnerable communities that, like us, are still fighting against bigotry and for acceptance. The way forward is to opt into a country where all our kids have a chance to be the heroes of their own stories.

Source: We Muslims Used to Be the Culture War Scapegoats. Why Are Some of Us Joining the L.G.B.T.Q. Pile-On?

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Muslims opposed to LGBTQ curricula for their kids aren’t bigots

2023/06/20 Leave a comment

A justification from the Dean of an Islamic Centre to provide some context to Canadian and American protests and highlighting an alignment among the religious right across religions. Ingenuous to argue that it is not political given today’s environment:

We are witnessing a unique and welcome phenomenon: Muslims in the West are at the forefront of a social movement that transcends any one faith or ethnicity. For those following the news, protests led by parents have erupted across the United States and Canada against school boards that wish to teach schoolchildren content about the acceptability of LGBTQ lifestyles.

While parents of all ethnicities and religions are involved, Muslim parents have been playing a central role in all of these cases, both as organisers and protesters, and their highly visible presence is creating waves on social media.

It is understandable for parents to be concerned. In Maryland, for example, a school district has approved books that discuss homosexuality and transgenderism as normal realities for children as young as three years old. This is state-sponsored ideological indoctrination of toddlers who can barely form complete sentences, much less think critically.

Parents have a God-given duty and legal right to provide moral instruction and guidance to their children. This includes the right of parents and their children to reject ideologies that contravene their beliefs.

Yet, supposedly secular institutions like public schools are now dictating that students must accept and affirm LGBTQ ideology, at times with the threat that if they refuse to do so, they “do not belong” in their country, as one teacher in Edmonton, Canada, recently said to a Muslim student.

As Muslims, we refuse to be coerced into believing something our faith categorically condemns. This is not a political stance. It is a moral principle.

A recent statement I helped draft, titled “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam”, has been signed and endorsed by more than 300 Islamic scholars and preachers across North America. In this document, we explicitly and clearly lay out the non-negotiable, normative Islamic position on sexuality and gender ethics.

We believe this statement will allow Muslim parents, educators, students and professionals to establish their right to hold their religious views without fear of legal reprisal. All too often, those who wish to live in accordance with mainstream, family-based morality are accused of being bigoted and “homophobic” if they refuse to endorse LGBTQ events. Many suffer social repercussions for holding such beliefs.

Worse still, children are expected to attend events in which drag shows and other actions deemed immoral by many people of faith are showcased.

This statement seeks to be a reference point to demonstrate to school boards and employers why Muslims must preferably be excused from activities that contradict our religious ideals.

The statement is explicitly non-partisan and states that the signatories are “committed to working with individuals of all religious and political affiliations to protect the constitutional right of faith communities to live according to their religious convictions and to uphold justice for all”.

Despite such clear declarations of non-partisanship and though the protesters, from Maryland to Ottawa, have insisted they are asserting moral agency rather than political allegiance, certain groups insist on turning this into a partisan issue.

Those who have committed themselves to a left-wing liberal ideology (including some progressive Muslims) are outraged and ashamed of anything short of the full affirmation and acceptance of all LGBTQ demands. They point to our own experience of oppression as a Muslim minority and say we should thus show reciprocity to other marginalised groups, even as LGBTQ advocates often refuse to show the same sensitivity on issues we hold sacred.

The fact that conservative media outlets have provided a platform for Muslim parents to share their grievances is supposedly conclusive proof that these protesters, and all of us who oppose the teaching of the LGBTQ agenda in schools, are aligning themselves with the far-right, including white supremacists. That is simply not the case.

To be sure, the sudden friendliness of politically-conservative groups and media outlets towards Muslims is indeed tempting some in the community to rush to forge new alliances with the political right after previously flirting with the left. They are making a mistake. Again.

Muslims across North America should firmly root their moral values in their faith, not in a specific political ideology. To understand why this distinction is so critical, we ought to heed a lesson from our recent past.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Islam in North America faced an existential crisis. Muslims were widely portrayed as the enemy. Scholars were deported. Bearded Muslim men and hijabi women were harassed, randomly questioned and detained at airports. Many worshippers avoided praying in masjids and some Muslims even changed their first names. The reality of Muslims in North America in the first decade of this century was one of fear, anxiety and extreme alienation.

The open hostility of the North American political right towards Islam and Muslims sharply contrasted with the comparatively sympathetic left. As a matter of pragmatic political (and in some cases, literal) survival, Muslims flocked to the liberal political parties of Canada and the United States. These left-wing institutions gave Muslims the best chance to survive against anti-Muslim forces largely represented by the conservative right. But embracing the left meant accepting an entire package of causes, some of which aligned ideologically with Islamic ethics (such as combatting racism), while others did not (such as the legalisation of certain drugs).

Many Muslims began approaching politics not as a tool but as an ideology. They felt motivated to resolve the cognitive dissonance between their political commitments and their religious beliefs, even if it meant radically reinterpreting the faith to allow for such accommodation.

Some progressives who identified with Islam began claiming, for the first time in our 14 centuries of scholarship, that the Quran has been misunderstood and that in its correct interpretation, it endorses alternative sexual lifestyles and sanctions same-sex marriages.

To be clear, Islamic law differentiates between a desire, which is in itself not sinful, and the deed, which could be a sin. Those struggling with same-sex desires but wishing to abide by Islamic law are our full brethren in faith and deserve all the love and rights of believers. They stand in contrast to those who flout Islamic law and take pride in disobedience. Muslim politicians and influencers, in particular, should be careful not to make religious claims on behalf of our faith.

In an authentic narration, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says: “believer is not bitten from the same hole twice”. Muslims who are rightly indignant about the moral decay sweeping our society in the name of inclusivity ought to be cautious not to be a pendulum that swings from one extreme to another.

Our politics is not our ideology and our ideology is neither left nor right. Our ideology is centred in our unshakeable faith, grounded in our immutable creed, and firmly rooted in the timeless words of God and the teachings of His final Messenger. We are a “Middle Nation” and, as the Quran says (2:143), our role is to be moral exemplars for mankind.

Yasir Qadhi Dean of The Islamic Seminary of America and Resident Scholar of East Plano Islamic Center

Source: Muslims opposed to LGBTQ curricula for their kids aren’t bigots

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‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

2023/06/19 Leave a comment

Of note:

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

‘It’s brought us together’: at Ramadan, American Muslims on life in the age of Trump

This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

In a tense monologue before the vote, Councilmember Mohammed Hassan shouted his justification at LGBTQ+ supporters: “I’m working for the people, what the majority of the people like.”

While Hamtramck is still viewed as a bastion of multiculturalism, the difficulties of local governance and living among neighbors with different cultural values quickly set in following the 2015 election. Some leaders and residents are now bitter political enemies engaged in a series of often vicious battles over the city’s direction, and the Pride flag controversy represents a crescendo in tension.

“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”

For about a century, Polish and Ukrainian Catholics dominated politics in Hamtramck, a city of 28,000 surrounded by Detroit. By 2013, largely Muslim Bangladeshi and Yemeni immigrants supplanted the white eastern Europeans, though the city remains home to significant populations of those groups, as well as African Americans, whites and Bosnian and Albanian Americans. According to the 2020 census some 30% to 38% of Hamtramck’s residents are of Yemeni descent, and 24% are of Asian descent, largely Bangladeshi.

After several years of diversity on the council, some see irony in an all-male, Muslim elected government that does not reflect the city’s makeup.

The resolution, which also prohibits the display of flags with ethnic, racist and political views, comes at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault worldwide, and other US cities have passed similar bans, with the vast majority driven by often white politically conservative Americans.

While the situation in Hamtramck largely evolved on its own local dynamics, some outside rightwing agitators connected to national Republican groups have been pushing for the ban on Hamtramck’s social media pages and voiced support for it at Tuesday’s meeting. They are from nearby Dearborn where they were part of an effort last year to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes.

Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.

But that sentiment is “an erasure of the queer community and an attempt to shove queer people back in the closet”, said Gracie Cadieux, a queer Hamtramck resident who is part of the Anti-Transphobic Action group.

Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.

“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.

Though the city’s Muslims are not a monolith and some privately told the Guardian they were “frustrated” with council, the only leader to publicly question it was the former city council member Amanda Jaczkowski, a Polish American who converted to Islam.

In a statement, she raised concerns about the move’s legality: “There are far too many questions to pass this today with any semblance of responsibility.”

On one level, the discord that has flared between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in recent years has its root in a culture clash that is unique to a partly liberal small US city now under conservative Muslim leadership, residents say. Last year, the council approved an ordinance allowing backyard animal sacrifices, shocking some non-Muslim residents even though animal sacrifice is protected under the first amendment in the US as a form of religious expression.

When Michigan legalized marijuana, it gave municipalities a late 2020 deadline to enact a prohibition of dispensaries. Hamtramck council missed the deadline and a dispensary opened, drawing outrage from conservative Muslims who demanded city leadership shut it down. That ignited counterprotests from many liberal residents, and the council only relented when it became clear it had no legal recourse.

At other times, the issues are not unique to Hamtramck. In the realm of local politics, personal fights among neighbors, warring factions and dirty politics are a common part of the democratic process across the US.

“I don’t know that we’re really all that different from other cities in most ways,” Majewski said.

However, race and religion add more fraught layers to Hamtramck’s issues. Islamophobia exists here, and some Muslims say they saw bigotry in local voter fraud investigations, and in LGBTQ+ supporters not respecting their religion.

But Majewski said the majority is now disrespecting the minority. She noted that a white, Christian-majority city council in 2005 created an ordinance to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast from the city’s mosques five times daily. It did so over objections of white city residents, and Majewski said she didn’t see the same reciprocity with roles reversed.

Ghalib disagreed, and labeled the prayer broadcast a “first amendment issue” while noting no one was asking for city hall to broadcast the calls.

Moreover, the white majority council was not always hospitable to Muslim residents who have previously faced overt racism. And with a majority-Muslim council in place, more Muslims had been appointed to boards and commissions, and hired in city hall. So had some LGBTQ+ residents, Ghalib added.

Despite the political clashes, he thinks there is hope for Hamtramck to live up to its multicultural ideals.

“We can get along and people are not violent here,” he said.

Cadieux agreed peaceful coexistence was possible.

“We aren’t in the business of excluding people from our society and I’m not going to exclude socially conservative Muslims – they have a place at the table just like everyone else,” she said. “However, they cannot, and will not, shove another community out of the way.”

Source: ‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags

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Canadian Muslim charity wins ‘milestone’ settlement after being falsely accused of funding terrorism

2023/06/12 Leave a comment

Of note and welcome accountability:

One of Canada’s largest faith-based charities has won a settlement over a set of publications that falsely claimed it was a “front” to fund terror groups abroad.

Islamic Relief Canada reached the out-of-court settlement earlier this month in a lawsuit against Thomas Quiggin — a former military officer turned self-described researcher who last year emerged as one of the more recognizable names in the truck convoy protests — and six others who it argued made “false, malicious and defamatory” statements aimed at harming the charity.

Along with Quiggin, the $2.5-million lawsuit from December 2018 took aim at Benjamin Dichter, who later emerged as a convoy spokesperson; writer Tahir Aslam Gora and an online television channel of which Gora is CEO; writer Raheel Raza and her husband Syed Sohail Raza; as well as a Yarmouth-based man named Joseph Hazelton who interviewed Quiggin about the charity in a YouTube video that garnered over 10,000 views.

Source: Canadian Muslim charity wins ‘milestone’ settlement after being falsely accused of funding terrorism

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Rahim Mohamed: Unhinged teacher tells Muslim to support Pride or ‘you can’t be Canadian’

2023/06/08 Leave a comment

Of note. Teacher went to far with her “you don’t belong (in Canada)!” but most other points were valid. And it is equally valid to point out the lack of consistency in reasonable accommodation arguments:

Administrators were thrust into full damage control mode on Tuesday when an audio recording of an in-class scolding of a Muslim pupil, attributed to a teacher at North Edmonton’s Londonderry Junior High, was leaked to social media.

In the recording, shared on Twitter by the London (U.K.)-based 5Pillars news, the teacher could be heard berating a student, identified as “Mansour”, for allegedly skipping class to avoid ‘Pride Month’ activities:

“You are out to lunch if you think it’s acceptable to not show up because (of) Pride activities going on at school,” the speaker admonished. “But meanwhile, (your LGBT+ classmates), they’re here when we did Ramadan… and they’re showing respect for in the class for your religion…”

“It goes two ways! If you want to be respected for you are… then you better give it back to people who are different from you.”

The speaker then references new anti-gay legislation in Uganda, a country where over eight-in-10 citizens identify as Christian: “In Uganda, literally, if they think you’re gay, they will execute you.” (Uganda’s just-passed Anti-Homosexuality Bill imposes the death penalty for so-called “aggravated” homosexual acts, such as gay sex with an underage partner or infecting a partner with HIV).

“If you believe that kind of thing, then you don’t belong (in Canada)!”

She went on to suggest that those who don’t agree with certain laws in Canada don’t belong in this country.

“We believe that people can marry whomever they want. That is in law. And if you don’t think that should be the law, you can’t be Canadian. You don’t belong here.”

(As of Wednesday morning, the recording had garnered over 100,000 views on Twitter).

5Pillars also shared a letter, dated (Saturday,) June 3, 2023, purportedly written by the school’s principal Ed Charpentier: “Many of you may have heard an audio recording of a teacher at Londonderry School circulating on social media channels,” reads the letter. “I want to emphasize that the views expressed by the teacher do not reflect the values of acceptance, inclusion and belonging that are so strong at Londonderry School.” (a phone number given at the bottom of the letter leads to the school’s central directory). The letter’s date suggests that the incident took place sometime last week.

Edmonton Public Schools added the following on Tuesday in an email to members of the media: “(We are) aware of the audio recording of a teacher at Londonderry School circulating on social media channels. The school and Division are taking steps to address the situation. Due to the Division’s legislated privacy obligations, we are not able to provide any further information.”

While the teacher was clearly out of line, the recording nevertheless reflects a religious tension that’s playing out across Canada over increasingly elaborate in-school Pride celebrations. Evidence is starting to mount that Muslim students are “opting-out” en masse from Pride-related activities — going so far as to skip school on designated Pride days.

London, Ont. (a city where nearly 10 per cent of residents identify as Muslim) has been hit by a wave of absences on school days dedicated to LGBT visibility. Just last month, nearly one-third of students enrolled at London’s largest elementary school stayed home as the district commemorated the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. (As the National Post’s Tristin Hopper reported, a majority of students absent that day appeared to be from Muslim families). At least six other schools in the London-area reported higher than usual absences that day. A similar mass absence broke out three months earlier, when the elementary school marked “Rainbow Day”.

A subsequent public statement from the London Council of Imams (LCI) read, “When it comes to activities related to ‘Pride Month’… parents play an integral role in the education of their children and are critical to empowering them to remain steadfast on their faith and beliefs. For this reason, the LCI is not in the position to direct parents on whether to choose to have your child(ren) to attend or be absent from school.” The statement advised parents to “use their discretion” to determine whether to send their children to school on days that included Pride-related activities and programming.

While Pride-related absenteeism among Muslim students has been documented most extensively in London-area schools, the leaked recording from Edmonton indicates that this issue is beginning to crop up in other Canadian cities with large Muslim populations (Edmonton is home to nearly 100,000 Muslims).

Interestingly, the brewing tensions over Muslim students declining to partake in in-class Pride activities recall the “reasonable accommodation” debates of yesteryear — only with the ideological roles reversed. The same progressives who once breathlessly defended the right of Muslim women to don Niqabs in voting booths (and, famously, at citizenship ceremonies) are now claiming that celebrating Pride Month is a sine qua non of being Canadian: “If you don’t believe that, then you don’t belong here!”

Even as they publicly condemned the teacher’s words, it would be unsurprising if many leaders in Edmonton’s ultra-progressive public school system were quietly nodding their heads in agreement with this statement.

Once again, Canada’s Muslim community finds itself at the centre of an ideologically charged debate over Canadian values. This time around, the absolutists are wearing rainbow-coloured clothing.

Source: Rahim Mohamed: Unhinged teacher tells Muslim to support Pride or ‘you can’t be Canadian’

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More Islamic lessons in Swiss schools? – SWI swissinfo.ch

2023/05/08 Leave a comment

Of note:

With a “Salam aleikum”, teacher Nimetullah Veseli greets the pupils of year four in the Kirchacker school building. Veseli stands in front of the six boys and six girls in the classroom in Neuhausen, Schaffhausen. Wearing jeans and a white shirt, he explains the Islamic religious teachings.

Imam Nimetullah Veseli gives confession-oriented Islamic lessons at the public school. Confession-oriented means that the children learn about their own religion, in contrast to the inter-faith lessons in most primary school.

Normally, these confession-oriented Islamic lessons take place in mosques. It is an exception that it is offered in a public school. Only ten Swiss schools offer such lessons.

Religious education with quality control

A recent study by the universities of Lucerne and Fribourg corroborates the advantages of this type of teaching: “The school is a neutral place,” says study director Hansjörg Schmid. This also means that children from different Muslim backgrounds receive lessons together.

In addition, more emphasis is placed on instructive elements of its study at the school. “The Islamic teachers are obliged to present their concepts to the school,” says Schmid. “This makes quality control possible.”

The director of the Swiss Centre for Islam and Society at the University of Fribourg, together with three other researchers, has examined all the Islamic instructions offered at schools. The study shows that once the lessons are up and running, the feedback is very positive. Generally the criticism and resistance comes beforehand.

Expand the programme – but how?

The study also shows that the lessons availability are strongly dependent on individuals. Most of the proposals came about as a result of initiatives by imams or Muslim religious teachers. “More stability would be important,” says study director Hansjörg Schmid.

The classes in Kreuzlingen could be a model for future programmes. There, various mosque associations, an interreligious working group and the local parishes have jointly set up Islamic instruction, and an association has taken over the sponsorship.

The study recommends expanding confession-oriented Islamic instruction in public schools. But who will pay for it? At present, the programme is supported by voluntary work as well as parental contributions or subsidies from mosque associations.

Broad-based teachings with trained teachers are lacking. In addition, there is another hurdle as in most cantons, teaching requires recognition under public law.

“Salam aleikum” in chorus

If a comparable religious education as that of the Christian national churches is to be developed, the Muslim communities would first have to be recognised. This is a lengthy process.

But Hansjörg Schmid says, “A lot is possible at the level of pilot trials.” He therefore advises trying out as much as possible at a low-threshold level – as in Neuhausen. There, Imam Nimetullah Veseli ends the lesson with “Salam aleikum”: “What does that mean?” he wants to know from the fourth graders. “Peace be with you and with you,” they answer in chorus.

Source: More Islamic lessons in Swiss schools? – SWI swissinfo.ch

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Egypt’s Debate on Music in Islam: Between Religious Austerity and Spiritual Ecstasy

2023/05/05 Leave a comment

Interesting discussion. During my time in the Mid-East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran) gained an appreciation for the richness of Arabic and Persian classical music:

In Youssef Chahine’s 1997 historical film Al Maseer(‘Destiny’), twelfth century Caliph Yaqub Al-Mansur’s youngest son, Abdallah (Hani Salama) is recruited by Islamist extremists, who launch war on Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd (Nour Al-Sherif) and the band of bohemian artists who rally behind him in support.

Amidst the ideological battle, Abdallah finds himself torn between the Islamists’ austere views and his lifelong passion for music and dance — an internal conflict which culminates in the film’s most powerful musical sequence.

The character’s journey points to a larger debate in the Muslim world surrounding the status of music in Islam.

I lived happily indifferent to this debate until last April, when I shared a list of Ramadan concert recommendations, under which several people expressed the view that music was contrary to the spiritual ethos of fasting from drink, food, and activities which are deemed sinful.

A few days later, just before Eid, a widely shared threadon the topic stirred controversy on Twitter. The author voiced her shock at the number of Muslims who attend concerts despite what she perceived as an obvious religious prohibition.

Reading through the replies, I wondered: where did the notion of an inherent opposition between music and Islam come from? Moreover, how have these views made their way to Egypt — a country with a long and rich tradition of spiritual music?

An Age-old Relationship

The relationship between Islam and music is as old as it is contentious. When the Prophet first instituted the call to prayer, adhan, in the early seventh century, he selected the Abyssinian Bilal as the first muezzin, chosen for his beautiful singing voice.

In pre-Islamic times, poet-musicians were revered in tribal society and held a special place in the courts of Arabian kings. Following the advent of the Muslim faith, religious music swiftly grew from the Bedouin tradition of lyrical poetry, which was primarily vocal but occasionally accompanied by instruments.

As such, the first four Caliphs (~632 – 661 AD) were marked by a vibrant cultural life in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, where wealthy families hosted salons and contests among both locals and foreign converts to crown the most talented musical performers.

As a result of the Islamic conquests, religious music was also influenced by the musical traditions of the conquered territories, leading to the introduction of new instruments, like the oud, a descendant of the Persian lute. Vocal methods inspired by Coptic chanting were also adopted.

In 750 AD, the establishment of the Abbasid dynasty, which ruled for five-centuries, propelled what is now known as the golden age of Islamic music, chronicled in tenth century scholar Abu Al Faraj Al-Isbahani’s Kitab Al Aghani (‘Book of Songs’).

Scholars like Al-Kindi wrote extensively on the theory of ethos (ta’thir) and the cosmological aspects of music. Ibn Sina, meanwhile, studied sound, rhythm, composition, and instruments, laying the foundations of a rich body of Islamic musical theory.

Among the era’s most prominent musicians were Ibrahim Al-Mawsili and his son Ishaq, credited with developing the practices of Ibtihalat and Inshad Dini — two forms of devotional poems recited with musical accompaniment and expressing the believer’s reverence to and love of God and the Prophet Mohamed.

Nowhere was the relationship between music and spirituality more overt than in Sufism, which is said to be as old as Islam itself, but developed into different orders formed around spiritual founders in the twelfth century.

Mass chanting, dance, long instrumental solos, and devotional love poems formed an integral part of Sufi Dhikr (remembrance of God) ceremonies, with music seen to bring its listener into a trance-like state, facilitating internal self-knowledge and unity with God.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Egypt led the revival of these musical traditions with regional icons like Umm Kulthum, Abdel-Halim, and Shadya all performing Ibtihalat throughout their careers. The artforms were further mainstreamed through radio and later television broadcasts in the 1960s, with voices of legendary munshideen like Sheikh Sayed Al Naqshabandi’s coming to form pillars of Egyptian spiritual life.

A Contentious Status 

The Quran makes no explicit mention of music, and yet, throughout history, many scholars have held the viewthat it is prohibited or regarded negatively in Islam. Opponents of the artform base their arguments on hadiths (sayings of the Prophet), and one in particular, reported by ninth century scholar Imam Al-Bukhari.

This hadith reads, “There will be people from my Ummah [nation] who will seek to make lawful the following matters: fornication, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcohol, and the use of musical instruments.”

People on both sides of the debate have interpreted the saying differently. Followers of more orthodox schools of thought, like Salafism or Wahhabism, understand it as a plain prohibition on music and the use of instruments.

Others, including eleventh century Persian scholar Imam Al Ghazali, have put forward the mitigated view that music in itself is not sinful, but songs which entice their listener to immorality should be avoided — a view echoed by former Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa.

In 2017, an article published by Egypt’s Dar Al-Ifta contributed to the now-widespread debate. It argued that reference to music in the hadith was included to paint a clear picture of ‘the licentious night,’ but unlike alcohol and adultery, it is not sinful in and of itself.

Whatever the argument’s merits, it did not gain particular prominence in Egypt nor interfere with the country’s rich musical life until the 1970s, a period which marked an important turning point for Egyptians Muslims’ relationship to their faith.

Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 war against Israel, the contentious signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978, and the spread of Wahhabism among Egyptian migrants returning from Saudi Arabia, were all factors that laid the groundwork for a growing Islamist movement to rise in popularity.

Over the next decades, debates about Islamic morality took center stage in public discourse and cultural life. A study published by the American University in Cairo finds that this surge in piety had a two-fold effect on the relationship between Islam and music in the country.

On the one hand, the 1980s witnessed growing religious animosity towards the arts, and particularly women’s involvement in the musical profession. Figures like Mohamed Metwally Al Shaarawy, Islamic scholar and former Minister of Endowments, advised women artists to renounce their profession and turn to a life of religious devotion.

On the other hand, spiritual and religious music grew in popularity and gained new audiences as proponents of moderate Islam turned to the artform as a means to explore, express, and deepen their faith — or to cope with mounting socio-economic pressures.

The latter trend was reinforced in the 1990s by the emergence of a centrist Islamist movement led by journalists, scholars, and a younger generation of preachers, in response to the parallel rise of extremism. Proponents of centrism encouraged the production of ‘clean art,’ a standard defined by adherence to Islamic morality and the spread of positive socio-political messages.

Those teachings, popular among Egypt’s educated youth, compelled pop artists like Amr Diab, Hisham Abbas, or Aida Al Ayoubi to put out one or more devotional songs; while international artists like the British Sami Yusuf grew to local stardom for their spiritual music.

Conversely, the move to bring music in line with a perceived adherence to religious values also fuelled calls for the censorship or outright banning of works which supposedly did not meet that standard — as seen to this day with purists’ ongoing war on mahraganatmusic, a politically charged and archetypally working class genre, denounced for overstepping moral boundaries in its tackling of socially contentious topics.

Fear of God or a Desperate Bid for Control?

In Chahine’s Al Maseer, the extremists’ bid for power rests on a darkly threatening view of Islam. Citizens of the Caliphate can either abide by their stringen norms, or risk not only the wrath of the extremists, but of God.

Through their practice of music, Ibn Rushd and his companions seek to counter this grim narrative with love, hope, and an unwavering call for freedom. In this way, the film’s central conflict rings true across borders and centuries, shedding a possible light on the source of religious extremists’ opposition to music and the arts.

Contention about the religious status of music is not unique to Egypt. Religiously austere movements in Sudan and Afghanistan have also pushed for or implemented stringent regulations on music as part of broader conservative social policies.

The debate is also not unique to the Muslim world. In the United States, one hallmark of the so-called ‘satanic panic’ of the 1980s — a period of nationwide hysteriaprompted by false allegations of mass satanic ritual abuse — was conservative Christians’ crusade against rock music.

I have neither the authority nor the theological expertise needed to make definitive statements about the status of music in Islam or any other religion. I do, however, believe that austere religious movements have historically opposed music for the same reason that Sufi mystics revel in its practice: because it nurtures a spirit of love, passion, communion, and hope — all things which stand as a direct counter to fear.

Source: Egypt’s Debate on Music in Islam: Between Religious Austerity and Spiritual Ecstasy

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Bouchard: D’où viennent nos valeurs?

2023/05/01 Leave a comment

Always interesting to read Bouchard’s analysis and this is a particularly strong response to Premier Legault’s tweet stressing the Catholic heritage:

Le tweet de M. Legault début avril nous invite à nous interroger sur l’origine des valeurs prédominantes dans notre société. Quelles en sont les racines dans notre histoire ? Deux thèses se présentent, l’une privilégiant la religion catholique, l’autre, la culture populaire.

Le catholicisme

Une première difficulté posée par cette thèse, c’est qu’elle est contredite de plusieurs façons par l’histoire. Le catholicisme prêchait l’austérité, la soumission, la quête de spiritualité, la chasteté. Ce sont là, on en conviendra, des valeurs qui s’accordent mal avec l’esprit du temps présent. Mais l’Église enseignait aussi la liberté, l’entraide, la solidarité, l’éthique du travail. À première vue, on est ici en terrain plus sûr.

Ce n’est pas le cas : nos valeurs ont émergé malgré l’opposition de l’Église. Nous accordons une large place à la démocratie et à l’éducation. Sur ces deux points, le dossier de l’Église est en souffrance. L’autorité venait d’en haut et on ne croyait pas nécessaire de prolonger l’éducation du peuple au-delà du secondaire et même du primaire. L’Église a longtemps combattu les projets d’instruction obligatoire et gratuite jusqu’à 14 ans.

L’égalité sociale, qui nous est chère, s’est longtemps heurtée à la vision hiérarchique de la société professée par l’Église. Le statut de chacun était fixé par la Providence. L’Église s’est opposée aussi à l’émancipation de la femme (travail salarié, autonomie juridique, droit de vote, contraception…). Enfin, nos élites laïques ont fortement encouragé l’entrepreneuriat et l’insertion d’une élite francophone dans le domaine des affaires. Encore là, il y avait incompatibilité. L’Église avait envers l’industrialisation une tradition de méfiance, et même d’opposition.

Quant à la liberté, confrontée à une moralité tatillonne et à la pratique de la censure, elle a eu fort à faire jusqu’à la fin des années 1950. L’Église était aussi loin du compte en matière d’ouverture à l’autre. Elle prêchait l’antisémitisme, était hostile aux autres religions, interdisait les mariages mixtes au nom de la race pure et a longtemps fait preuve de racisme envers les Autochtones. Elle a par ailleurs beaucoup tardé à composer avec la modernité, le changement, le progrès, les droits de la personne. L’État-providence, avec ses politiques sociales généreuses, fut l’une des grandes réalisations de la Révolution tranquille. Une bonne partie du haut clergé a vu d’un mauvais oeil cette initiative de l’État.

Pendant longtemps, l’émancipation économique, sociale et politique des Canadiens français a compté parmi les objectifs principaux de notre nation. L’émancipation, c’est-à-dire la levée des contraintes imposées par le colonialisme anglophone. Or, à des moments clés de notre histoire, l’Église s’est mise au service du colonisateur contre les Canadiens français — pensons à la Conquête, aux rébellions de 1837-1838, aux deux crises de la conscription.

Voici une autre difficulté. Des catholiques de renom comme Jean Hamelin, Pierre Vadeboncoeur et Fernand Dumont ont soutenu que la foi de nos ancêtres était très superficielle. Ils y ont vu la conséquence d’une pastorale autoritaire trop centrée sur le rituel et la routine, qui ne tenait que par la « coutume ». Sous l’effet des nouvelles coutumes introduites dans les années 1945-1960, l’ancienne serait disparue. Fernand Dumont : « On s’est débarrassé de la religion comme d’un vieil appareil de radio qu’on jette pour acheter une télévision. » Comment imaginer que les fidèles, ces « robot[s] télécommandé[s] », « ces chrétiens sans anticorps » (J. Hamelin) aient pu être profondément imprégnés des valeurs en cause ici ? F. Dumont encore, dans une conférence de 2003, reprochait à l’Église d’avoir failli à faire passer dans la culture civique les valeurs du christianisme.

Enfin, le Québec est une petite nation minoritaire qui est née et a grandi sous deux colonialismes et qui s’est toujours inquiétée de sa survie. C’est plus qu’il n’en fallait pour inspirer des réflexes d’autoprotection qui font d’abord appel à la solidarité.

La thèse de la culture populaire

Il est plus vraisemblable que nos valeurs soient nées dans la culture populaire. L’héritage de valeurs comme la solidarité, le travail, l’esprit communautaire et la liberté peut en effet être rattaché à une tout autre expérience que la religion catholique. Cette thèse comporte deux volets.

Il y a d’abord notre passé lié au défrichement. Nos ancêtres lointains étaient des défricheurs. Ils ont façonné le territoire originel et ont édifié une société. Après la mise en valeur de la vallée du Saint-Laurent, ce travail s’est poursuivi jusque dans les années 1940 dans les espaces péri-laurentiens, où, en un siècle, une quinzaine de régions ont été fondées. Nous avons été longtemps un peuple de défricheurs.

Or l’expérience des défrichements inculquait profondément le goût de la liberté. Elle faisait appel aussi à l’éthique du travail, à l’esprit d’entreprise (les colons, isolés, étaient laissés à eux-mêmes). S’ajoutait à cela, par nécessité, la solidarité communautaire, dans un contexte de vide institutionnel où la survie était un défi constant.

Le deuxième volet, c’est celui du travail industriel. La culture robuste née de l’expérience pluriséculaire des défrichements s’est ensuite transmise dans le cours de l’urbanisation. Car les Canadiens français étaient aussi un peuple de lutteurs, cette fois dans la sphère du travail. L’historien Jacques Rouillard a bien montré la vigueur et l’ampleur des luttes ouvrières menées depuis longtemps au sein du syndicalisme, sans compter la fréquence et la dureté des conflits là où il n’existait pas de syndicats.

On connaît les valeurs forgées dans ces luttes : équité, égalité, solidarité, émancipation sociale, entre autres. Or, elles résultaient de pratiques conflictuelles, souvent agressives, que le clergé, en grande partie, a longtemps condamnées, s’employant plutôt à diffuser l’idée que le patron devait être traité comme un père par ses employés.

On voit que l’origine de nos valeurs reste une question complexe. Mais on voit bien aussi que, sur des points essentiels, elles ont pris le contre-pied de l’héritage de l’Église plutôt que de s’en nourrir.

Source: D’où viennent nos valeurs?

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Douglas Todd: Canadian Indigenous spirituality anything but monolithic 

2023/04/22 Leave a comment

Another good reminder:

“All First Nations believed their values and traditions were gifts from the Creator. One of the most important and common teachings was that people should live in harmony with the natural world and all it contained.”

That’s what the Canadian government’s educational resource for young people says every Indigenous person believed before settlers arrived. And today many continue to believe there is uniformity in contemporary Indigenous spiritual practice.

But the recent Canadian census reveals that Canada’s 1.8 million Indigenous people are anything but monolithic in regard to religion and spiritual practice. The range is extraordinary.

To begin with, the census, which every decade asks about religion, found a fast-rising number of Indigenous people, about 47 per cent, are checking off the box: “No religion, and secular perspectives.” That compares to only 20 per cent in 2011.

At the other end of the spectrum, a declining number of Indigenous people, also about 47 per cent, says they’re Christians.

And only four per cent of Canadian Indigenous people put themselves in the category of “traditional (North American Indigenous) spirituality.” This small group would be closest to the historic form of spirituality described in Ottawa’s educational resource for young people.

Indigenous religious diversity stretches surprisingly wide in 2023, flowing into unfamiliar streams.

The census, for instance, found 1,840 Indigenous Canadians who say they’re Muslim, while another 1,615 Canadians are Jewish.

I reached out to some Indigenous, Muslim and Jewish organizations to interview a First Nations, Inuit or Metis who is Jewish or Muslim, whereupon the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs introduced me to Cheyenne Neszo.

A status member of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation based in and around Prince George, Neszo is deep into the process of converting to Judaism, the proud religion of her fiancé, Zach Berinstein.

Neszo, a 32-year-old lawyer, grew up in North Delta, where her extended family occasionally attended church and had in many ways lost touch with their Indigenous roots. That changed in recent years, as Neszo, her mother and grandmother applied for First Nations status and reconnected to those cultural origins.

Now, Neszo is three years into studying Judaism with Rabbi Dan Moscovitz at Vancouver’s Temple Sholom, where she and Berinstein will be married in September. “It’s just one of the most welcoming places I’ve come across,” said Neszo, who specializes in Indigenous law. Their wedding will be Jewish, with Lheidli T’enneh elements.

To understand the evolution in Indigenous religiosity over the years, I have frequently interviewed First Nations, Metis and Inuit elders and others who are Christians, who belong to one of the three denominations that ran Canada’s defunct federally funded residential schools.

Although the proportion of Indigenous people who belong to those denominations is declining, it remains that 485,000 Indigenous people today (27 per cent) still say they’re Catholic, 110,000 affiliate with the Anglicans and 42,000 are United Church members.

In addition, 28,000 Indigenous people belong to the Pentecostal Church, which did not operate a residential school. And what of the 6,515 who are Jehovah’s Witnesses and 5,035 who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons)?

Although he was not available for an interview, John Borrows, who is of Anishinaabe heritage and a committed Latter-day Saint, was recently profiled by Cardus, a Canadian think tank. Borrows is a professor specializing in Indigenous law, as well as head of the Victoria Multifaith Society.

Like other Anishinaabe people, Borrows went on a Vision Quest as a young man, fasting and being alone in the forest. Although he joined the Latter Day Saints when he was 19, he believes those experiences of encountering God’s presence in nature still inform his faith.

Ray Aldred, a member of the Cree Nation who directs the Indigenous studies program at Vancouver School of Theology, is not surprised more Canadian First Nations are classifying themselves under “no religion, and secular perspectives.”

They are essentially saying, Alder believes, that they don’t want to be associated with “one of those,” by which he means the Christians who are increasingly being condemned for their role in operating about 125 residential schools, which were almost all closed by the 1970s.

There was “no such thing as secular” in traditional Indigenous culture, said Aldred. “The category didn’t exist in the Indigenous mindset.”

He said Indigenous people are picking up the concept from attending college and university, where faculty tend to vilify Christianity and academic papers about the faith seem to only get published if the author can show they hate the religion.

“All that has an impact.”

At the same time, Aldred said many Indigenous people don’t see a contradiction between Christianity and their peoples’ ancient spiritual ways. “Their families have been part of the church for a couple of hundred years.”

For his part, Aldred, who is an Anglican priest, said he believes settler culture and religion has brought both positives and negatives.

Rather than Indigenous people zeroing in on their specific religious or non-religious identities, Aldred suggests they “try to focus on a communal identity,” which connects them to the land and to each other.

He talked about how Metis people, as well as the Nisga’a of northern B.C., follow many different denominations and religious traditions without fighting about it. He admires the Nisga’a creed: “One nation, one heart.”

And in an era when social media incites groups to feel contempt for the other, Aldred rightly encourages people of different faiths and no faith to engage in authentic dialogue.

“The important thing is people learn to speak heart to heart, so we hear one another.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Canadian Indigenous spirituality anything but monolithic 

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