High-school students need to learn more about Holocaust to dissuade teens from joining ISIL, group says

2016/04/19 Leave a comment

One effort to improve awareness:

“It’s very topical: we’re talking about 17-year-olds and 16-year-olds being lured into ISIS,” said Berger. “The question is, if these students were educated about genocide, that would certainly help to a large degree.”

Kyle Matthews of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies is supporting Berger’s initiative.

“It struck me that we’re not teaching our youth enough about genocide when we have Canadian and Quebec youth leaving to commit genocide overseas,” said Matthews.

“Something is missing in our core education when not just a couple of a bad apples but a significant number are embracing an ideology that encourages slaughter (and) extinction.”

Matthews says it is important to preserve the memory of such massacres: there are no survivors left of the Armenian genocide and Holocaust survivors are elderly and dying.

Genocide education is sporadically available around the country. The Toronto District School Board has offered a course since 2007 that investigates examples of genocide in the 20th and 21st centuries, including Armenia, the Holocaust and Rwanda.

Berger, a filmmaker and university lecturer, carries on her mother’s message in her own school presentations on the Holocaust — one in which Kazimirski still figures prominently through a posthumous video testimonial about the harrowing experiences she endured.

In her school visits, Berger learned that teachers are afraid to teach it and don’t have the tools.

“An ethics teacher came up and told me that kids are graduating from Grade 11 without knowing what the word genocide means,” Berger recounted.

About 18 months ago, she founded The Foundation for the Compulsory Study of Genocide in Schools. In Quebec, Berger is lobbying for changes to a textbook for a course called “Contemporary World” to include a full chapter on genocide instead of the current few paragraphs. She also wants help for teachers.

Berger says a meeting with Education Minister Sebastien Proulx is scheduled for early May and that a previous petition as well as meetings with provincial legislators and teachers’ unions have been positive.

David Birnbaum, the legislative assistant to Proulx, has helped Berger navigate Quebec bureaucracy and bring the matter to the attention of the national assembly.

Birnbaum said academic studies suggest a relatively high level of ignorance about the Holocaust and genocide in general, but adds the matter is tackled in the current Quebec curriculum.

“There are a range of places … where the Holocaust and the concept of genocide are mentioned and it’s always a challenge to make changes to the program,” Birnbaum said.

“But my own priority is to make sure that Heidi Berger gets to make her case as clearly and directly as she can.”

Quebec title: Une Québécoise réclame une formation sur le génocide dans les écoles

Source: High-school students need to learn more about Holocaust to dissuade teens from joining ISIL, group says | National Post

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Canadians of all stripes oppose face coverings at citizenship ceremonies: Vote Compass – Politics – CBC News

2015/09/25 Leave a comment

While CBC’s Vote Compass does not have the same rigour as a formal poll, it is likely accurate in reflecting overall public opinion regarding the niqab(E.g. this recent Angus-Reid poll, Religion and faith in Canada today: strong belief, ambivalence and rejection define our views, captures a similar picture):

The findings from Vote Compass largely bolster this claim. When broken down along party lines, the results show that Bloc Québécois and Conservative supporters were most opposed to the idea of allowing people to cover their faces during citizenship ceremonies — 96 per cent and 92 per cent, respectively.

NDP, Liberal and Green supporters were less opposed, with 62, 57 and 51 per cent, respectively, saying face coverings shouldn’t be allowed during this type of ceremony.

On the other hand, 31 per cent of Green supporters, 29 per cent of NDP supporters and 28 per cent of Liberal supporters agree that it should be allowed.

The issue is often “framed as religious freedom, but it’s also an issue about cultural norms, and right across the spectrum you’re seeing that Canadians are very uncomfortable with people covering their face for whatever reason,” says Kyle Matthews, senior deputy director for the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University.

….The issue is most heated in Quebec, where the notion of reasonable accommodation was a major issue during the 2014 provincial election. While many commentators believe the Parti Québécois’ pursuit of a so-called charter of values was a prime reason for its defeat, religious accommodation remains contentious in Quebec.

According to the Vote Compass results, Quebecers are most opposed to facial coverings in citizenship ceremonies (90 per cent), followed by people in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (72 per cent), the Atlantic provinces (68 per cent), Ontario (66 per cent) and B.C. (58 per cent).

Christopher Cochrane, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, says this is “a textbook wedge issue, and also one of the few roads into Quebec for the Conservative party.”

The Conservatives and the Bloc have been vocally opposed to facial coverings in public ceremonies. While the Liberals and NDP have suggested a more inclusive stance, their positions have been tougher to pin down, says Cochrane.

For those parties, weighing in on the niqab issue is a tricky proposition, especially in Quebec.

“If Mulcair or Trudeau were to express support for a ban or a restriction, they’d alienate a pretty reasonable chunk of their support base,” says Cochrane.

At the same time, “if the Conservatives can make any inroads in [Quebec], then that’s a way of undercutting support precisely where the Liberals and New Democrats are far and away in the lead.”

Source: Canadians of all stripes oppose face coverings at citizenship ceremonies: Vote Compass – Politics – CBC News

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