Citizenship in Scandinavia – What are reasonable demands for full membership?

2019/12/05 Leave a comment

Interesting comparison, showing despite the different approaches, the underlying views on citizenship requirements in all three countries were very similar:

In 2018, together with our colleagues in the other Scandinavian countries, we undertook a representative survey in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Young people from ages 20 to 36 were interviewed – just over 7500 in total. Individuals from the majority populations, descendants of immigrants from Iraq, Pakistan, Poland, Somalia, Turkey, and Vietnam, were included. Immigrants from Iraq and Somalia also participated in the survey in all three countries, while immigrants from Pakistan, Poland and Turkey were included, in addition, in the Norwegian sample. All respondents were asked what they considered reasonable requirements for citizenship, what they thought of the existing rules in their respective countries, and to what extent they felt they were recognized as members of the national community.

Citizenship is the last stop on the way to formal membership in a new homeland. Before this, immigrants with legal status already enjoy many rights. New members of Scandinavian societies have access to some civil and social rights, from day one in the country. Still, citizenship is regarded as important and attractive, especially among those who come from countries with greater legal, economic, and political uncertainty. Citizenship in Scandinavia protects them from deportation, in principle at least. It bestows help overseas, grants the right to vote in parliamentary elections – and not least, gives access to a Scandinavian passport, with all the rights to travel freely and work in the entire EU region.

In the last few years there has been a trend to implement stricter requirements for citizenship in many European countries, such as knowledge tests (language, history, and society), proof of self-sufficiency, and longer waiting times.

Among researchers, these stricter requirements are often interpreted from either a control or an integration perspective: Recent increases in immigration have made authorities keen on finding legal ways to control access to citizenship. On the other hand, concerns over integration have raised the bar for competence in language and knowledge about society, and those who are permanent residents and seek citizenship are required to meet this higher bar in order to become full members.

Regardless of how one interprets the politics, these laws create indisputably higher barriers. There has been an (implicit) assumption among researchers that the stricter requirements are not in immigrants’ interest, but no empirical research has been done. This new survey is the first to investigate these issues empirically.

The three Scandinavian countries are interesting to compare because they cover the entire scale when it comes to citizenship requirements. Denmark is one of the strictest countries in Europe when it comes to citizenship. Sweden is on the liberal outer edge, while Norway – as is often the case with immigration and integration policies – finds itself somewhere in the middle.

We began our study with the assumption that these marked political differences would be mirrored in the immigrant groups and descendants’ attitudes in the three countries – that immigrants and descendants in Denmark would be more critical of the country’s rules, than corresponding groups would be to Swedish policies in Sweden, for example. We also thought the majority populations would want stricter requirements than the minorities would, especially in Denmark. The results did not meet our expectations though, and in many ways were very surprising.

Overall the survey does not show big differences between the three countries, and when it comes to attitudes toward how the rules are and should be, there are barely differences between the three groups (majority, immigrants, and descendants). The prevailing attitude is that it is legitimate to set requirements for new members of society who become citizens – the majority across groups believe these requirements should include five years of residence, a simple language and society test, an oath, and being part of the work force. At the same time, they think it should be legal to keep one’s original citizenship when naturalizing. In other words, there should be clear requirements to become a full member of a Scandinavian society, but these should be reasonable and possible to meet. The results paint a picture of consensus on what “reasonable” means – a framework that lies somewhere between the extremes represented by Denmark and Sweden.

Other institutions, like the education system, labor market, and health care system are probably more important as a basis for attitudes toward membership in society than citizenship.

How should we interpret these findings? The alignment in attitudes across our survey respondents is a pointer to the fact that life in Scandinavia is not so different across the three countries, despite the respective states’ different policies on immigration. In fact, other institutions, like the education system, labor market, and health care system are probably more important as a basis for attitudes toward membership in society than citizenship.

The survey does not tell us anything about emphasis placed on different institutions’ importance for feelings of membership, acceptance, and belonging. But we do see indications of experiences of both discrimination and of lower levels of trust among minority groups.

The consensus on requirements, nevertheless, suggests that the citizenship institution continues to matter as a framework for togetherness. The survey also indicates that minority members of society are reflected actors, alongside majority society members, when it comes to guarding the last ticket into society – and what should be demanded, in order to ensure the functioning of an increasingly diverse society.

Source: Citizenship in Scandinavia – What are reasonable demands for full membership?

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How McKinsey Helped the Trump Administration Carry Out Its Immigration Policies

2019/12/05 Leave a comment

Yet another illustration of McKinsey’s ethnical and moral blindspots (not as egregious as holding their conference in Xinjiang nor Huawei’s role in surveillance tech Huawei founder defends ‘seamless surveillance’ technology, dismisses criticism it enables human-rights abuses):

Just days after he took office in 2017, President Trump set out to make good on his campaign pledge to halt illegal immigration. In a pair of executive orders, he ordered “all legally available resources” to be shifted to border detention facilities, and called for hiring 10,000 new immigration officers.

The logistical challenges were daunting, but as luck would have it, Immigration and Customs Enforcement already had a partner on its payroll: McKinsey & Company, an international consulting firm brought on under the Obama administration to help engineer an “organizational transformation” in the ICE division charged with deporting migrants who are in the United States unlawfully.

ICE quickly redirected McKinsey toward helping the agency figure out how to execute the White House’s clampdown on illegal immigration.

But the money-saving recommendations the consultants came up with made some career ICE workers uncomfortable. They proposed cuts in spending on food for migrants, as well as on medical care and supervision of detainees, according to interviews with people who worked on the project for both ICE and McKinsey and 1,500 pages of documents obtained from the agency after ProPublica filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act.

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Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India The Prime Minister’s Hindu-nationalist government has cast two hundred million Muslims as internal enemies.

2019/12/04 3 Comments

Good long and disturbing read on the rise and impact of the BJP (excerpts):

On August 11th, two weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent soldiers in to pacify the Indian state of Kashmir, a reporter appeared on the news channel Republic TV, riding a motor scooter through the city of Srinagar. She was there to assure viewers that, whatever else they might be hearing, the situation was remarkably calm. “You can see banks here and commercial complexes,” the reporter, Sweta Srivastava, said, as she wound her way past local landmarks. “The situation makes you feel good, because the situation is returning to normal, and the locals are ready to live their lives normally again.” She conducted no interviews; there was no one on the streets to talk to.

Other coverage on Republic TV showed people dancing ecstatically, along with the words “Jubilant Indians celebrate Modi’s Kashmir masterstroke.” A week earlier, Modi’s government had announced that it was suspending Article 370 of the constitution, which grants autonomy to Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state. The provision, written to help preserve the state’s religious and ethnic identity, largely prohibits members of India’s Hindu majority from settling there. Modi, who rose to power trailed by allegations of encouraging anti-Muslim bigotry, said that the decision would help Kashmiris, by spurring development and discouraging a long-standing guerrilla insurgency. To insure a smooth reception, Modi had flooded Kashmir with troops and detained hundreds of prominent Muslims—a move that Republic TV described by saying that “the leaders who would have created trouble” had been placed in “government guesthouses.”

The change in Kashmir upended more than half a century of careful politics, but the Indian press reacted with nearly uniform approval. Ever since Modi was first elected Prime Minister, in 2014, he has been recasting the story of India, from that of a secular democracy accommodating a uniquely diverse population to that of a Hindu nation that dominates its minorities, especially the country’s two hundred million Muslims. Modi and his allies have squeezed, bullied, and smothered the press into endorsing what they call the “New India.”

Kashmiris greeted Modi’s decision with protests, claiming that his real goal was to inundate the state with Hindu settlers. After the initial tumult subsided, though, the Times of India and other major newspapers began claiming that a majority of Kashmiris quietly supported Modi—they were just too frightened of militants to say so aloud. Television reporters, newly arrived from Delhi, set up cameras on the picturesque shoreline of Dal Lake and dutifully repeated the government’s line.

…..

To many observers, Modi’s success stemmed from his willingness to play on profound resentments, which for decades had been considered offensive to voice in polite society. Even though India’s Muslims were typically poorer than their fellow-citizens, many Hindus felt that they had been unjustly favored by the central government. In private, Hindus sniped that the Muslims had too many children and that they supported terrorism. The Gandhi-Nehru experiment had made Muslims feel unusually secure in India, and partly as a result there has been very little radicalization, outside Kashmir; still, many Hindus considered them a constant threat. “Modi became a hero for all the Hindus of India,” Nirjhari Sinha, a scientist in Gujarat who investigated the riots, told me. “That is what people tell me, at parties, at dinners. People genuinely feel that Muslims are terrorists—and it is because of Modi that Muslims are finally under control.”

….

As Modi began his run for Prime Minister, in the fall of 2013, he sold himself not as a crusading nationalist but as a master manager, the visionary who had presided over an economic boom in Gujarat. His campaign’s slogan was “The good days are coming.” A close look at the data showed that Gujarat’s economy had grown no faster under his administration than under previous ones—the accelerated growth was “a fantastically crafted fiction,” according to Prasad, the former editor. Even so, many of India’s largest businesses flooded his campaign with contributions.

Modi was helped by an overwhelming public perception that the Congress Party, which had been in power for most of the past half century, had grown arrogant and corrupt. Its complacency was personified by the Gandhi family, whose members dominated the Party but appeared diffident and out of touch. Rahul Gandhi, the head of the Party (and Nehru’s great-grandson), was dubbed the “reluctant prince” by the Indian media.

By contrast, Modi and his team were disciplined, focussed, and responsive. “The Gandhis would keep chief ministers, who had travelled across the country to see them, waiting for days—they didn’t care,” an Indian political commentator who has met the Gandhis as well as Modi told me. “With Modi’s people, you got right in.” While the Congress leaders often behaved as if they were entitled to rule, the B.J.P.’s leaders presented themselves as ascetic, committed, and incorruptible. Modi, who is said to do several hours of yoga every day, typically wore simple kurtas, and members of his immediate family worked in modest jobs and were conspicuously absent from senior government positions; whatever other allegations floated around him, he could not be accused of material greed.

The B.J.P. won a plurality of the popular vote, placing Modi at the head of a governing coalition. As Prime Minister, he surprised many Indians by challenging people to confront problems that had gone unaddressed. One was public defecation, a major cause of disease throughout India. At an early speech in Delhi, he announced a nationwide program to build public toilets in every school—a prosaic improvement that gratified many Indians, even those who could afford indoor plumbing. Modi also addressed a series of widely publicized gang rapes by speaking in bracingly modern terms. “Parents ask their daughters hundreds of questions,” he said. “But have any dared to ask their sons where they are going?”

The address set the tone for Modi’s premiership, or at least for part of it. As a young pracharak, he had taken a vow of celibacy, and he gave no public sign of breaking it. Unburdened by family commitments, he worked constantly. People who saw him said he exuded a vitality that seemed to compensate for his otherwise solitary existence. “When you have that kind of power, that kind of adoration, you don’t need romance,” the Indian political commentator told me. In Gujarat, Modi had focussed on big-ticket projects, wooing car manufacturers and bringing electricity to villages; as Prime Minister, he introduced a sweeping reform of bankruptcy laws and embarked on a multibillion-dollar campaign of road construction.

Modi’s effort to transform his image succeeded in the West, as well. In the United States, newspaper columnists welcomed his emphasis on markets and efficiency. In addition, Modi called on a vast network of Indian-Americans, who cheered his success at putting India on the world stage. The Obama Administration quietly dropped the visa ban. When Modi met Obama, not long after taking office, the two visited the memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., a man Modi claimed to admire. During his stay, Modi had a dinner meeting with Obama, but he presented White House chefs with a dilemma: he was fasting for Navaratri, a Hindu festival. At the meeting, he consumed only water.

The Indian political commentator, who met with Modi during his first term, told me that in person he was intense and inquisitive but not restless; he joked about the monkeys that were marauding his garden, and happily discussed the arcana of projects that were occupying his attention. The main one was water: India’s groundwater reserves were declining quickly (they’ve gone down by sixty-one per cent in the past decade), and Modi was trying to prepare for a future in which the country could run dry. During the meeting, he also displayed a detailed list of nations that were in need of various professionals—lawyers, engineers, doctors—of the very kind that India, with its huge population of graduates, could provide. “He is smart, extremely focussed,” the commentator said. “And, yes, a bit puritanical.”

…

In 2016, after four years of trying to find a publisher for her book, Ayyub decided to publish it herself. To pay for it, she sold the gold jewelry that her mother had been saving for her wedding. “I wasn’t getting married anytime soon anyway,” she told me, laughing. She found a printer willing to reproduce the manuscript without reading it first, and cut a deal with a book distributor to share any profits. She persuaded an artist friend to design an appropriately ominous cover. Ayyub was protected by the fact that, as an English-language book, it would be read only by India’s élite, too small a group toconcern the B.J.P. That May, the book went on sale on Amazon and in bookstores around the country. She called it “Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up.”

“Gujarat Files” relates the highlights of the discussions Ayyub had with senior officials as she tried to figure out what happened during Modi’s and Shah’s time presiding over the state. It is not a polished work; it reads like a pamphlet for political insiders, rushed into publication by someone with no time to check punctuation or spell out abbreviations or delve into the historical background of the cases discussed. “I didn’t have the resources to think about all that,” Ayyub told me. “I just wanted to get the story out.” The virtue of the book is that it feels like being present at a cocktail party of Hindu nationalists, speaking frankly about long-suppressed secrets. “Here is the thing,” Ayyub said. “Everybody has heard the truth—but you can’t be sure. With my book, you can hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

Among those whom Ayyub “stung” was Ashok Narayan, who had been Gujarat’s Home Secretary during the riots. According to Ayyub, Narayan said that Modi had decided to allow the Hindu nationalists to parade the bodies of the victims of the train attack. Narayan said that he had warned Modi, “Things will go out of hand,” but to no avail. When he resisted, Modi went around him. “Bringing the bodies to Ahmedabad flared up the whole thing, but he is the one who took the decision,” he said.

…

As Modi consolidated his hold on the government, he used its power to silence mainstream outlets. In 2016, his administration began moving to crush the television news network NDTV. Since it went on the air, in 1988, the station has been one of the liveliest and most credible news channels; this spring, as votes were tallied in the general election, its Web site received 16.5 billion hits in a single day. According to two people familiar with the situation, Modi’s administration has pulled nearly all government advertising from the network—one of its primary sources of revenue—and members of his Cabinet have pressured private companies to stop buying ads. NDTV recently laid off some four hundred employees, a quarter of its staff. The journalists who remain say that they don’t know how long they can persist. “These are dark times,” one told me.

That year, Karan Thapar, the journalist who had asked Modi whether he wanted to express remorse for the Gujarat riots, found that no one from the B.J.P. would appear on his nightly show any longer. Thapar, perhaps the country’s most prominent television journalist, was suddenly unable to meaningfully cover politics. Then he discovered that Modi’s Cabinet members were pushing his bosses to take him off the air. “They make you toxic,” Thapar told me. “These are not things that are put in writing. They’re conversations—‘We think it’s not a good idea to have him around.’ ” (His network, India Today, denies being influenced by “external pressures.”) In 2017, his employers expressed reluctance to renew his contract, so he left the network.

Modi’s government has targeted enterprising editors as well. Last year, Bobby Ghosh, the editor of the Hindustan Times, one of the country’s most respected newspapers, ran a series tracking violence against Muslims. Modi met privately with the Times’ owner, and the next day Ghosh was asked to leave. In 2016, Outlook ran a disturbing investigation by Neha Dixit, revealing that the R.S.S. had offered schooling to dozens of disadvantaged children in the state of Assam, and then sent them to be indoctrinated in Hindu-nationalist camps on the other side of the country. According to a person with knowledge of the situation, Outlook’s owners—one of India’s wealthiest families, whose businesses depended on government approvals—came under pressure from Modi’s administration. “They were going to ruin their empire,” the person said. Not long after, Krishna Prasad, Outlook’s longtime editor, resigned.

…

The lack of journalistic scrutiny has given Modi immense freedom to control the narrative. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the months leading up to his reëlection, in 2019. Backed by his allies in business, Modi ran a campaign that was said to cost some five billion dollars. (Its exact cost is unknown, owing to weak campaign-finance laws.) As the vote approached, though, Modi was losing momentum, hampered by an underperforming economy. On February 14th, a suicide bomber crashed a car laden with explosives into an Indian military convoy in Kashmir, killing forty soldiers. The attack energized Modi: he gave a series of bellicose speeches, insisting, “The blood of the people is boiling!” He blamed the attack on Pakistan, India’s archrival, and sent thousands of troops into Kashmir. The B.J.P.’s supporters launched a social-media blitz, attacking Pakistan and hailing Modi as “a tiger.” One viral social-media post contained a telephone recording of Modi consoling a widow; it turned out that the recording had been made in 2013.

On February 26th, Modi ordered air strikes against what he claimed was a training camp for militants in the town of Balakot. Sympathetic outlets described a momentous victory: they pumped out images of a devastated landscape, and, citing official sources, claimed that three hundred militants had been killed. But Western reporters visiting the site found no evidence of any deaths; there were only a handful of craters, a slightly damaged house, and some fallen trees. Many of the pro-Modi posts turned out to be crude fabrications. Pratik Sinha, of Alt News, pointed out that photos claiming to depict dead Pakistani militants actually showed victims of a heat wave; other images, ostensibly of the strikes, were cribbed from a video game called Arma 2.

But, in a country where hundreds of millions of people are illiterate or nearly so, the big idea got through. Modi rose in the polls and coasted to victory. The B.J.P. won a majority in the lower house of parliament, making Modi the most powerful Prime Minister in decades. Amit Shah, Modi’s deputy, told a group of election workers that the Party’s social-media networks were an unstoppable force. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” he said. “We are capable of delivering any message we want to the public—whether sweet or sour, true or fake.”

For many, Modi’s reëlection suggested that he had uncovered a terrible secret at the heart of Indian society: by deploying vicious sectarian rhetoric, the country’s leader could persuade Hindus to give him nearly unchecked power. In the following months, Modi’s government introduced a series of extraordinary initiatives meant to solidify Hindu dominance. The most notable of them, along with revoking the special status of Kashmir, was a measure designed to strip citizenship from as many as two million residents of the state of Assam, many of whom had crossed the border from the Muslim nation of Bangladesh decades before. In September, the government began constructing detention centers for residents who had become illegal overnight.

…

Source:  Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India

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What do the latest EU migration statistics mean for immigration? [UK]

2019/12/04 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis:

With just two weeks to go before the General Election (the outcome of which will determine the direction of future UK immigration policy), the latest ONS EU migration statistics show yet another drop in overall EU migration to 48,000 – down from 200,000 at its peak in 2015, paint a troubling picture for employers who have been increasingly struggling to recruit talent since the referendum.

Brexit impacts

The skills shortages facing businesses in many sectors, including social care, construction, hospitality and manufacturing since the referendum are well-documented, while EU citizens have been voting with their feet and leaving the UK for destinations offering greater opportunities/prospects or preferring to stay in their member states here economies have been improving while the pound has been losing value.

Political indecision and the uncertainty of Brexit carry wider costs – with delayed projects, missed business opportunities and many businesses abandoning Britain to relocate all or part of their operations to other EU countries from where they can continue with frictionless trade. As the General Election looms, the much-needed clarity businesses need remains somewhat elusive.

Election rhetoric

Despite the publication of the long-awaited Conservative Party manifesto on Sunday and the much-trailed references to the introduction of a new ‘Australian-style points-based system’, there remains scant detail of the proposed future immigration system that will apply to EU and non-EU nationals alike from 2021. The manifesto’s slogans of prioritising people who ‘have a good grasp of English’, are ‘law-abiding citizens’ and ‘have a good education and qualifications’ really offer nothing new – these are all long-established features of the existing UK system.

It is regrettable that the toxic and arbitrary language of numbers is returning to the campaign: notwithstanding abandoning the ill-fated (and ill-considered) net migration target of predecessor Conservative administrations since 2010, the manifesto pledges that “overall numbers will come down”, absent of any apparent rationale or assessment of the future needs of the UK economy – or indeed any explanation of how this reduction will be delivered.

Cost deterrent

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic increase in Home Office filing fees and related charges, meaning only those able to afford the substantial fees are able to come to the UK.
Indeed, the Prime Minister announced last week that the immigration health surcharge, which until a year ago was £200 per migrant per year of residence in the UK, will increase to £625 per year per migrant according to EU migration statistics.

This means for example, that an employer of a skilled worker in a family of four would be required to pay up-front government charges of over £22,500 for a standard five-year sponsorship – indeed these costs are only likely to be significantly increased in future. This impacts for business will be all the greater given that EU migrants who are currently able to come and take jobs without the need for sponsorship from an employer, would be subject to the same high fees once free movement comes to an end.

Remarkably, the spouse of a British citizen with two non-British children would be required to pay a minimum of £24,000 over a five-year period to settlement in government fees. This is a staggering figure, meaning that families would have to save almost £5,000 per year just to pay the Government fees – no easy task considering that a quarter of British families hold an average of £100 in savings.

All of this comes against a backdrop of an actual Government cost of decision-making of just £155 per application as well as an erosion of appeal rights and of legal aid which has meant families are trying to navigate the highly-complex immigration system themselves while putting their savings on the line.

Costs appear to be increasingly used to deterrent effect and as a mechanism to limit numbers, prejudicially affecting certain groups – a far cry from the ‘more fair and compassionate system’ lauded in the manifesto.

Innovator and Start-up routes

The hasty closure of the Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) and Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur) routes earlier this year, replaced by the new Innovator and Start-up categories – which may be seen as poor substitutes, not least due to the lack of transparency and accessibility of participating endorsing bodies’ schemes – have led to a dramatic reduction in the number of entrepreneurs coming to/remaining in the UK.

An analysis of the figures shows just 10 Innovator entry clearance applications in the last quarter (14 in total for the past six months), compared to approximately 2,500 Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) applications for the year prior to the route’s closure – which under the Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) criteria would have required the creation of at least 5,000 new jobs for settled workers – further compounding concerns that the UK is not as open for business as the Government suggests.

Source: What do the latest EU migration statistics mean for immigration?

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Hiring rule hampers diversity among teachers, says Ontario Education Minister

2019/12/04 Leave a comment

Classic challenge between competing objectives, experiences and diversity. Experience should not be used as a proxy for merit or suitability :

A regulation that forces boards to hire the most experienced supply teacher for full-time jobs — rather than the best fit — hinders efforts to bring in educators from more diverse backgrounds in schools, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said after hearing from parents in Peel who are concerned about racism in the board.

“What is really the challenge that impedes the ability of boards to make decisions based on merit or equity is Regulation 274, which creates some impediments to hiring talented educators based on their qualifications,” Lecce told the Star in an interview Monday.

He said the rule “eliminates the ability of boards to find, to choose, merited candidates that happen to be (diverse) or of specific backgrounds to better reflect the communities they represent. Their advice to me was to very seriously look at removing those impediments and I committed to them to doing so.”

Lecce has sent in two troubleshooters to probe complaints of anti-Black racism at the Peel District School Board, and last week personally met with families.

The issue, however, is one provincial negotiators will raise during the current round of talks with teacher unions, who support Regulation 274. It was originally implemented to curb nepotism, a huge concern for the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, OECTA.

OECTA declined to comment on the regulation, saying it is a matter for the bargaining table.

The hiring rule was brought in by the former Liberal government during contract negotiations in 2012 with OECTA, requiring principals to hire from among the five most qualified senior candidates in the supply pool for long-term and permanent jobs.

The regulation was later extended to cover all other school boards in Ontario over the objections of the boards themselves, as well as directors of education and deans of Ontario’s faculties of education.

Teachers have also complained that they lose seniority if they move to another board.

By 2013, even then-premier Kathleen Wynne admitted the regulation was an “overcorrection” and said her government would work to “get it right” during the next round of contract talks, though no changes were made.

Then, last April, Lecce’s predecessor Lisa Thompson called the regulation was “outdated” and that the government would address it because it “rewarded teachers based on seniority and did not recognize teachers who were excelling at their jobs.”

Lecce said changing the regulation “will have implications at the bargaining table, but I made commitments to understand the problem and work in good faith with all the parties, given this is about student success,” he said.

“ … The point really is taken that if you are not able to have a mechanism to draw upon talented people from various visible minority communities and racialized communities then we don’t do justice to our kids from those communities,” Lecce also said.

Earlier this year, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario said a 2014 provincial report allayed concerns about the regulation and found that boards were not hiring unqualified candidates, nor was it preventing more diverse candidates from getting jobs, though boards and principals disagree.

Unions have, however, said they are willing to look at the lack of mobility to switch boards that Regulation 274 has created.

Source: Hiring rule hampers diversity among teachers, says Ontario Education Minister

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No, this is not a watershed moment for hockey

2019/12/04 Leave a comment

Not following hockey, hard to comment on this take. Readers may have views:

‘The subject matter we’ve been dealing with is difficult, is hard and it does not in anyway way reflect the values of the Calgary Flames. It’s been a difficult time, but we are going to move forward. … We are ready to move beyond this and focus on the game on the ice.”

When I heard that statement from Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving last week, I knew my assumptions were correct.

I also knew this when Mitch Marner confirmed a report that he was the rookie who was on the receiving end of improper behaviour from Mike Babcock. I also knew this when Akim Aliu came forward alleging racial abuse from Flames head coach Bill Peters. And I knew when I saw Dan Carcillo tweeting stories of abuse from his fellow former players.

I knew that, within a week, after the so-called hockey allies had grown tired of typing on their keyboards, they would forget about all of this.

“We are ready to move beyond this and focus on the game on the ice.”

This is why hockey culture will never change.

Personally, I’m tired of being othered, of being made to feel less-than in an arena. I’m tired of the racist comments that spill like water, dismissed with an “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way.” But mostly I’m tired of all the people who say they have my back but far too often run away when I need them to fight by my side.

You can’t pretend hockey will magically stop being racist. You can’t pretend it will magically stop being abusive. You can’t pretend it will magically become an environment where players and staff can speak out without fearing for their careers.

Changing a culture, especially one so ingrained, is not easy. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done; it just means it takes constant, consistent effort. And that effort is simply not there.

Hockey culture values teamwork, family, humility. But these ideals are warped. Teamwork; by valuing groupthink over individuality. Hockey has failed to understand that you can be part of a team and work toward a common goal and still have your own opinion and stand up against injustice. Family; in insularity and othering anyone who’s not in the group and who’s not like everyone else. Humility; by players opting for saying nothing as opposed to saying the right thing.

In hockey, unlike other major North American sports, players leave home as early as 12 years old to further their career. It puts them in a new location with a new family and a new team. The team becomes their de facto family. This culture becomes even more ingrained, and by the time players attend college, they are set in their ways. It becomes much harder to change.

It is more than just culture; it’s a system. Hockey is so insular, recycling the same group of people, so coaches such as Mr. Peters remain in the system. As do people such as former OHL coach John Vanbiesbrouck, who stepped down in 2003 after calling the team’s then-captain Trevor Daley a racial slur.

Four years later, Mr. Vanbiesbrouck was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, and last year he was hired by USA Hockey. Is it any surprise, then, that hockey continues to suffer from racism? Why bother saying anything if the only consequence will be given to you, the victim?

That players are coming forward now should be applauded. This, hopefully, will encourage others to go public. But the National Hockey League Players’ Association’s desire for players to reveal allegations privately instead of publicly shows a troubling lack of transparency. Without transparency, how do we see a commitment to change?

And how can we have faith things will change when the NHL’s own diversity and inclusion program has existed for more than two decades with not much to show?

When a reporter asked Mr. Treliving if Mr. Aliu coming forward means things have changed in the past decade, Mr. Treliving said: “From 10 years ago, I think we have changed.”

Changed how, exactly? Is he talking about how players are still subject to racial abuse? How those who’ve used racial slurs are still hired for leadership roles within hockey?

Notably, Mr. Treliving also did not once use the word “racist.” He did not comment on how or if they will change the coach-vetting process.

Mr. Treliving bemoaned the “difficult time” this was for him and the organization without acknowledging Mr. Aliu, the actual victim of racist abuse.

But Mr. Treliving wants to move on. And so will the rest of the hockey world, forgetting about these recent incidents. Hockey has come closer to the tipping point but, like a poorly made roller coaster, will slide down before reaching the peak.

Source: Jashvina Shah

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Belgian Carnival Town to Renounce UNESCO Title Amid Anti-Semitism Controversy

2019/12/04 Leave a comment

Of note. Understand from one of my readers that the mayor is also a member of parliament of a right-wing Flemish nationalist party:

The famed Belgian Carnival town of Aalst wants to renounce its place on the U.N. cultural heritage list, saying it is sick of widespread complaints that this spring’s edition contained blatant anti-Semitism.

Town officials say the float objected to, with stereotypical depictions of hook-nosed Jews sitting on piles of money, was trying to make a joke and they contend no one should try to muzzle humor of any kind during the three-day Carnival.

Aalst mayor Christoph D’Haese said Sunday that city officials “have had it a bit with the grotesque complaints and Aalst will renounce its UNESCO recognition.”

UNESCO, Jewish groups and the European Union have condemned the float as anti-Semitic, with the EU saying it conjured up visions of the 1930s.

UNESCO already was planning to consider at its Dec. 9-14 meeting in Bogota, Colombia, whether to kick Aalst off the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

“It was clear that we had to go, so we kept the honor to ourselves,” D’Haese told VTM network.

Aalst is one of Europe’s most famous Carnivals and it is a celebration of unbridled, no-holds-barred humor and satire. Politicians, religious leaders and the rich and famous are relentlessly ridiculed during the three-day festival ahead of Roman Catholic Lent.

Imposing limits on that would take away the essence of the town’s Carnival, said D’Haese, who has seen revelers impersonating leaders of his Flemish nationalist N-VA party leadership go around in Nazi uniforms.

For him, it is the be-all, end-all of Aalst Carnival, in which a laugh trumps ethical concerns. The parade of floats draws some 100,000 visitors every year to the city close to Brussels. Most often it goes off without a hitch.

After the outrage in early March, D’Haese claimed city elders reached out to Belgium’s “anti-discrimination center and several Jewish organizations, for whom it will never be enough.”

Hans Knoop of the Belgian Forum of Jewish Organizations told The Associated Press that the mayor had not been cooperative in discussing the issue.

And Knoop warned that renouncing the UNESCO cultural heritage tag should not open the way for more similar displays at the festival in late February.

“They are not at liberty to spew any more anti-Semitic dirt,” he said. “We will keep a close eye on Aalst.”

He insisted there are merry Carnivals around the world without a hint of racism or anti-Semitism.

D’Haese said it would be “unavoidable” that there would be Jewish ridicule at the next edition. He has said it was not for him to police humor.

“We are on a very dangerous slippery slope when people will be able to decide what can be laughed at,” he said.

A decision by UNESCO to remove Aalst would be a first since the 2003 convention that created the cultural heritage label.

The Aalst Carnival has been on the list since 2010.

Now, D’Haese said, “I want to give Aalst Carnival back to Aalst.”

Source: Belgian Carnival Town to Renounce UNESCO Title Amid Anti-Semitism Controversy

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with , ,

A year ago, Ottawa did the right thing by arresting Meng Wanzhou. We’re still paying the price

2019/12/03 Leave a comment

The latest by former ambassador to China, David Mulroney, capping a series of articles in the Globe and elsewhere on the challenges posed by China and the arguments for a more robust response:

A year after the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, new reporting is shedding light on what actually happened and when. But we’re still a long way from understanding the fallout from the arrest, and what it tells us about China and our future.

It appears that Vancouver was the place the Americans selected in their bid to get the well-travelled Ms. Meng arrested because they deemed Canada the country most likely to comply with their request. Given the price we’ve paid since, that’s a dubious honour. But it’s also an indication of the extent to which a bipartisan cross-section of official Washington trusts Canada. That trust was not misplaced.

It’s also clear that Canada was given advance warning of the request, although not much. Canadian officials heard from the Americans on Nov. 30, the day before Ms. Meng’s arrival in Vancouver, allowing them the minimum amount of time to act.

But it was time enough for the team that considered the American evidence. The toughest calls in Ottawa always come with the tightest deadlines. Getting them right is the essence of a senior official’s job.

That said, it’s not clear that officials anticipated how furiously China would react, or the difficulty of managing an extended crisis in Canada-China relations. Having stepped up to make the right call, Ottawa then seemed to go into responsive mode, consistently a step behind a strident and formidably vengeful China.

Once the decision to arrest Ms. Meng was made, it was entirely appropriate to advise the Prime Minister – he was, after all, at a summit that included both U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

But we should be wary of the idea that the Prime Minister could or should have weighed in to cancel the arrest because of its impact on Canada-China relations. That would set a precedent whereby all future extradition requests concerning China, and – ultimately – any other country big enough to make life difficult for us, would follow a separate, political decision-making track. This would be exploited by China and other rising powers, and risk transforming Canada into a safe haven for fraudsters, sanction evaders and human-rights violators.

We should be equally dismissive of the objection that China’s consular officials weren’t informed of the arrest in a timely manner. When I served as ambassador, China was notoriously cavalier about informing us, even months later, of the arrest of Canadian citizens, particularly those of Chinese origin. Chinese officials were notified of Ms. Meng’s arrest in a fraction of the time they typically take to inform us when a Canadian is arrested.

That said, beyond simply advising the Chinese of the arrest, we probably should have reached out quickly to more senior Chinese officials to explain what had happened and where things might go. But given that our communicator-in-chief at that point was John McCallum, our garrulous former ambassador, it probably wouldn’t have helped much.

Ultimately, it’s hard not to feel that the tight time frame for decision making was a blessing, enabling us to do the right thing before other, less-principled agendas had time to emerge. They were not long in appearing. We should not underestimate how much more difficult managing the issue became once various high-level Ottawa insiders began to talk up the idea of abandoning the extradition process. It’s no wonder the Chinese were seriously confused – so were most Canadians.

Taking stock today, what’s most discouraging is our persistent failure to learn from the painful experiences of a difficult year, despite the fact that we’ve spent that time uncharacteristically focused on China. There has been a lot to take in. Along with the cruel detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, we’ve witnessed almost daily examples of Chinese brutality in Xinjiang and repression in Hong Kong, and mounting evidence of Beijing’s interference around the world. Yet, Ottawa continues to treat China as an old friend with whom we’ve had a temporary falling out.

We did the right thing a year ago, and we’re still doing it when it comes to Ms. Meng, who is, unlike our detained Canadians, being treated fairly and with respect. And we’re still paying the price China now exacts from any country that values the rule of law over the rule of Beijing – a new reality whose implications, a full year later, continue to elude us.

Source: A year ago, Ottawa did the right thing by arresting Meng Wanzhou. We’re still paying the price: David Mulroney

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Germany’s anti-immigrant AfD rejects shift further right

2019/12/03 Leave a comment

Better than the alternative but not by much:

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Saturday opened a two-day conference where, as it seeks to build on recent election successes, it rejected a swerve to the extreme right.

After delegates voted on Saturday evening, the relatively moderate candidate Jörg Meuthen secured another term as co-chair, while compromise candidate Tino Chrupalla was elected to replace outgoing co-chair Alexander Gauland.

Internal power struggles had been expected to dominate the halls of the conference center, where 600 party delegates, in addition to choosing co-chairs, were voting on 13 members of the executive committee.

An extreme-right faction known as the Wing (Flügel) had been hoping to boost its representation on the executive council and make a bid to swing the leadership in its direction.

The two-day gathering in the city of Braunschweig comes on the heels of state elections in eastern Germany in recent months that saw the AfD surge to second place in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia with more than 20% of the vote.

Meuthen used the moment to revel in the declining support for Germany’s traditional center-left Social Democrats and center-right Christian Democrats.

“We are experiencing the implosion of formerly dominant forces with the simultaneous strengthening of new forces … I believe that government-building without us will become more and more difficult, until it does not work at all anymore,” he said.

All parties represented in Germany’s federal and state parliaments have refused to work with the AfD.

As Meuthen expressed ambitions to enter government, some 20,000 protesters gathered outside the conference. Some shouted “all of Germany hates the AfD” and “no place for Nazis.”

Extreme right of the AfD

The Wing’s influence in the AfD has been strengthened after two of its key figures — Björn Höcke and Andreas Kalbitz — scored significant electoral victories in regional elections in eastern Germany this year. By some estimates, up to 40% of party members are sympathetic to the Wing, giving them a prominent role in choosing the executive council and co-leaders.

Chrupalla, who won the support of 54.5% of delegates, was viewed as a compromise candidate acceptable to moderates and radicals. He was ultimately able to battle off a challenge from a more hard-line lawmaker, Gottfried Curio.

At a press conference, Chrupalla disputed the idea that the AfD used incendiary rhetoric to win votes, saying “we have used reason” to gain centrist voters, which “requires no drastic language.”

Founded in 2013 as a euroskeptic party, the AfD has drifted to the right as it seized on the 2015 refugee crisis to promote an anti-Islam, anti-foreigner and pro-family program. Despite scoring above 20% in eastern Germany, it has stalled nationwide at about 13-15%.

Moderates within the party want to appeal to a broader political base and disgruntled voters by shedding its far-right image in a bid to capture support from other parties, particularly the ruling conservative Christian Democrats and their center-left Social Democrat coalition partners.

The battle over the future direction of the AfD is not only a strategic question, but an existential one.

It comes as Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put some local AfD offices under further scrutiny. There is great concern within the party that its national associations could be put under observation if it swings too far to the extreme right.

Source: Germany’s anti-immigrant AfD rejects shift further right

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Multiculturalism is undermining democracy

2019/12/03 Leave a comment

Appears more extreme in UK than Canada but some similarities that bear watching:

Last Tuesday marked a truly tragic day in British politics. The day began with extensive media coverage of the Chief Rabbi’s attack on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. He asked the British public to ‘vote with their conscience’. Hours later, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) featured on BBC Politics Live, accusing the Conservative Party of tolerating Islamophobia within its party.

No doubt feeling left out, the Hindu Council UK issued a statementexpressing solidarity with the Chief Rabbi, then proceeding to label Labour an anti-Hindu party. And to top off the grievance merry-go-round, the Sikh Federation UK offered the view that there was ‘too much emphasis on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia’. When it comes to racism and discrimination, ‘others like Sikhs are overlooked time and again’, it added. What better illustration of how our wonderfully diverse democracy has become infected by the virus of identity politics and is descending into a farcical competition for victimhood.

For some time, our political class has been wedded to multiculturalism, championing difference and diversity over cohesion. In doing so, it has failed to articulate a set of moral standards that can tie together the UK’s diverse set of ethnic and religious groups.

As I have previously pointed out on spiked, one consequence of this failure is that Middle Eastern and South Asian geopolitics have become major considerations for ethnic-minority voters in this General Election. Politicians have, for some time, championed particular sides in international conflicts and disputes on the grounds of what is electorally beneficial. This has also involved developing close ties with divisive group-specific organisations. This includes the MCB, which within two weeks of the brutal Islamist murder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim shopkeeper Asad Shah in Glasgow published a position statement which declared that its members were not obliged to recognise Ahmadis as fellow Muslims.

There are many religiously affiliated organisations operating in the UK which are responsible for the crudest forms of prejudice imaginable. Individuals are accused of betraying their faith if they adopt a certain position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ongoing Indo-Pakistani Kashmir dispute, or the Khalistan secessionist movement in the Punjab region. Self-appointed community leaders position themselves as the ultimate authority on deciding what constitutes a good Jew, a loyal Muslim, a proper Hindu and a real Sikh. A flurry of religious associations, as well as organisations affiliated to foreign political parties, are now threatening to use these geopolitical positions to influence domestic electoral outcomes.

Following a Labour Party conference motion which condemned the Indian government and called for ‘international intervention’ over Kashmir, the Overseas Friends of BJP UK declared that they would seek to defeat the party’s candidates in a number of constituencies across the country. The body’s president, Kuldeep Singh Shekhawat, has claimed that ‘if the entire Indian community in the UK votes Tory, we will see a swing of around 40 seats to the Tories’. ‘This will swing the actual election result’, he said.

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) has launched a campaign encouraging British Muslim voters to defeat ‘Islamophobic’ Conservative MPs – identifying 14 constituencies of importance under its Operation Muslim Vote campaign. The MPAC’s propaganda is hugely oriented towards territorial disputes in other parts of the world, including Kashmir and Palestine.

As a British Muslim of South Asian origin, I can personally say that I have heard far too much about territorial disputes taking place in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent during the build-up to what is meant to be a UK General Election. The efforts of religious organisations and affiliate bodies for non-UK political parties – large and small – to generate faith-based bloc voting should be a cause for political concern.

Only a few weeks ago, swathes of the UK were devastated by flooding, ruining family homes and small businesses. Social care for the elderly and disabled is at breaking point. Many deprived inner-city areas continue to be ravaged by crime and delinquency. Left-behind former coal-mining and steel communities have been starved of meaningful state investment in infrastructure for decades. Domestic extremist threats continue to loom over the law-abiding British majority. Brexit hangs in the balance. Territorial disputes across the globe may be of great interest to faith-based actors, but how interested is the average British voter in such issues?

The UK could be on the verge of an identity-politics breakdown. And make no mistake: our politicians are reaping what they have sowed.

Source: Multiculturalism is undermining democracy

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