Barbara Kay: ‘Values’ return to Quebec in more sensible Liberal version

2014/09/20 Leave a comment

Barbara Kay on the more narrow approach to a “values charter.
Apart from her intellectually lazy comment “multiculturalism as it is practised in English Canada,” hard not to oppose the narrow requirement to show one’s face when receiving government services.:
In Quebec, “values” is a loaded term. Last year, the Parti Québécois bought into the assumption that a crackdown on hijabs and yarmulkes and other outward signs of religious belonging would stir up nativist emotions along sovereignty-friendly lines. The gambit failed rather spectacularly, arousing latent racism at the margins, producing across-the-board cultural tensions, and in the end the now-infamous Bill 60, the Charter of Quebec Values, contributed to the PQ’s dramatic tumble from power in last April’s election.

Which does not mean that Quebecers aren’t concerned about cultural self-preservation. Protectionism is not a dirty notion in Quebec, and for good historical reasons. Apart from Montreal, Quebec is the only ethnically homogeneous collective in North America of its size. Disapproval of the PQ version of values protectionism was not an endorsement of multiculturalism as it is practiced in the ROC.

Before there was a PQ Charter of Values, let us remember, there was Bill 94, a Liberal project that had as its centerpiece a prohibition on face cover in the getting and receiving of public services. Polls gave the bill near-unanimous support in Quebec – 95% – and 75% support in the rest of Canada. The lack of equivocation is due not only to Quebecers fears of cultural dilution, but to Quebec’s outsized commitment to feminism (in part a response to the outsized patriarchism of the Catholic Church in Quebec’s history). Female politicians exert a powerful influence over all social and cultural policies and disbursements here. The galling sight of veiled, depersonalized women in this women’s rights stronghold arouses far more animus than any multiculturalist ideal can counter.

And so, now that Quebec has a Liberal majority government once more, it should come as no surprise that Bill 94, which foundered with Liberal party fortunes several years ago, is being revived. On Wednesday Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée announced that her government will proceed this fall with “inclusive” values legislation. It will be tamer than Bill 60 – I take that to mean no hijabs, crosses or yarmulkes will be challenged – but it would require that public services be dispensed and received with the face uncovered.

Hurrah! One can argue until one turns blue that face cover is of a piece, rights-wise, with head coverings and crosses, but as the Sesame Street Song has it, “One of these things is not like the other.” Three of “these things” are socially harmless. Face cover is anti-social, anti-equality and anti-community in the larger sense of the word. It is associated with oppressive, misogynistic regimes. It is not clothing and is not worn; it is a mask and is, so to speak, “borne.” We do not have the freedom to give or receive pubic services while naked. Too much cover is as indecent as too little when it comes to psychological comfort in our culture.

Barbara Kay: ‘Values’ return to Quebec in more sensible Liberal version

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Don’t politicize women’s bodies

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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European court upholds French ban on face veils

2014/07/03 Leave a comment

Gives European governments wide latitude, arguably overly so:

The courts Grand Chamber rejected the arguments of the French woman in her mid-20s, a practicing Muslim not identified by name. She said she doesn’t hide her face at all times, but when she does it is to be at peace with her faith, her culture and convictions. She stressed in her complaint that no one, including her husband, forced her to conceal her face – something of particular concern to French authorities.

The court ruled that the laws bid to promote harmony in a diverse population is legitimate and doesn’t breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

Critics of the ban, including human rights defenders, contend the law targets Muslims and stigmatizes Islam. France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, estimated at five million, making the issue particularly sensitive.

Under the law, women who cover their faces can be fined up to 150 euros $205 or be obliged to attend a citizenship class, or both.

When enacted, the law was seen as a security measure, with veiled women considered fundamentalists and potential candidates for extremist views. Another concern was respect for the French model of integration in which people of different origins are expected to assimilate.

The court concluded the ban is a “choice of society,” giving France a wide margin of appreciation – all the more so because there is no common ground in Europe on the issue. Only a minority of countries ban face veils.

AP News : European court upholds French ban on face veils.

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Vote à visage couvert: un amendement du Bloc battu

2014/05/03 Leave a comment

BQ tries to play identity politics on C-23 (Elections Act), perhaps not learning from some of the lessons of the recent QC provincial election. But interesting that this marks the formal acceptance by the Conservative government, after the high-profile berating of Elections Canada for allowing the niqab in 2008 by the Prime Minister:

Ce résultat a « déçu » le député bloquiste, lui qui espérait l’appui des députés conservateurs à sa proposition. Il rappelle que le gouvernement Harper a présenté deux projets de loi pour interdire le vote voilé, deux initiatives qui sont mortes au feuilleton.

« Ils semblent avoir décidé que c’était payant politiquement en 2007 et en 2011, a indiqué M. Bellavance. (…) Ils doivent penser qu’ils n’en ont plus besoin. »

Il reproche au gouvernement conservateur de ne pas tenir compte du fort consensus qui existe au Québec contre le vote voilé.

Vote à visage couvert: un amendement du Bloc battu | Martin Croteau | Politique canadienne.

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Zainab Bint Younus: Don’t speak for Muslim women. Speak to us

2014/04/03 Leave a comment

The Muslim Salafist feminist perspective on the niqab:

Muslim women who wear niqab aren’t some kind of scary “other.” We are Canadian women, as intelligent, vivacious, outspoken, and empowered as every other Canadian woman. I, for one, was raised in Canada; my childhood is complete with hiking, Tim Hortons, organic maple syrup, and hanging out at the mall with my friends (and golly, wouldn’t you believe it, my niqab didn’t do anything to stop my raucous laughter?).

The niqab isn’t a symbol of our “regressive understanding of the world,” but rather, it is primarily an act of worship to God, a symbol of identity, and finally, a conscious choice to not engage in the overwhelming, toxic environment of hypersexualization that cheapens men, women and sexuality by turning people into commodities and objects stripped of humanity.

While she has a point that Jon Kay should have spoken to niqabi women (or read the CCMW report Study dispels stereotypes about Ontario women who wear niqabs), Kay’s point in terms of the impact of the niqab on integration, and how it is perceived, is largely correct. And Younus is silent on the degree to which she interacts with others; her website suggests, as is her right, that her main focus is with respect to debates among Muslims, rather than broader Canadian issues. And her comment on the “toxic environment” illustrates an equal intolerant attitude to the one she condemns.

Zainab Bint Younus: Don’t speak for Muslim women. Speak to us | National Post.

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Jonathan Kay: The space between the hijab and niqab is where our anxieties lie

2014/03/31 Leave a comment

Jonathan Kay on the contrast between the hijab and the niqab, following the experience of a young non-Muslim woman wearing a hijab for a week. I think he largely has it right on the contrast between the hijab being compatible with integration, the niqab not:

One of the effects of the niqab is that it strips away all of the informal social cues that we typically rely on when we talk to people: the smiles, raised eyebrows, furrowed brows and such that tell us if our jokes are funny or not, our stories interesting or not, our presence welcome or not. The Burqa signals to the non-burqa-wearer that, to the extent he is capable of arousing any emotion at all, it is of the negative variety. In such a situation, most of us non-burqa folks are likely to put on a nervous smile, say something harmless, and get any necessary social or commercial interaction over with as quickly as possible so as not to induce the fear of sexual predation that, the niqab’s existence implicitly signals, is but thinly suppressed in all of us.

Since 9/11, all Western societies have become obsessed with the way Muslim women dress. (Indeed, in parts of Quebec, it has become a sort of full-blown neurosis.) But Rawhani misunderstands the issue if she thinks that this is really about the hijab. It is about our basic, socially felt human need to see the faces  of those we interact with. The fact that we politely tolerate those who live behind masks bespeaks Canadian civility. But it does not mean the underlying practice is in any way healthy or desirable.

Jonathan Kay: The space between the hijab and niqab is where our anxieties lie | National Post.

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Expect Pauline Marois to seek sovereignty diversion: Hébert | Toronto Star

2014/03/21 Leave a comment

While Hébert’s assessment may change somewhat after the leader debates, a good assessment of the PQ’s electoral strategy:

And so the word is that Marois will seek salvation in a diversion.

Over the remaining two weeks of the campaign, the PQ is expected to go harder on its plan for a secularism charter. The project is as polarizing as the notion of a referendum but in a positive sense for the sovereigntist party.

It remains to be seen whether enough voters will decide that their support for the charter outweighs their opposition to another referendum to reverse the momentum of the campaign in the PQ’s favour.

According to CROP, the charter is a priority for only a fraction of its supporters. And fatigue with that debate is even more prevalent among Quebecers than fatigue with the referendum issue. Still, from the PQ’s electoral perspective, a tired horse is better than a lame horse.

Expect Pauline Marois to seek sovereignty diversion: Hébert | Toronto Star.

Further illustration of charter strategy seen in Minister Drainville’s most recent comments,  and making the plea for majority government:

Only way to save charter is through majority government: PQ

Drainville is also playing on the fears of the niqab/burka, and extending the Charter to include students, not just teachers and professors, relying on anecdotes of a few students at Concordia  (the exchange with the reporter is worth reading). I do find the niqab/burka in Western countries symbolizes rejection of integration, in contrast to kippas, turbans, hijabs, crucifixes etc.:

Ban the burka for students, Parti Québécois says

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Study dispels stereotypes about Ontario women who wear niqabs

2014/02/01 2 Comments

Interesting. I would also be interested in knowing how many were converts versus born Muslim:

A majority of the women who participated said they began wearing the veil after turning 18, and most foreign-born respondents said they only began wearing the niqab after arriving in Canada.

The study suggests concerns expressed by pundits that niqab wearers will use the concealing nature of the garb to avoid being photographed for identification or security purposes, such as boarding a flight at an airport, are unfounded.

“All those interviewed said they understood there were instances where they would be required to show their faces,” the authors wrote. Many interviewees indicated strongly that they would never refuse to reveal their face in an instance requiring they be identified.

The study indicates most women who wear the niqab made the decision based on a personal belief, rather than pressure from spouses or relatives.

“We thought it would be political, but it was more for them an expression of their spirituality or their journey, which we did not think we would hear,” Hogben said.

In fact, several respondents indicated they had been pressured by spouses to stop wearing the veil.

There is an ongoing debate among Muslim scholars as to whether the niqab is obligatory in Islam. The study chose to avoid the “religious or theological basis for the practice itself.”

Study dispels stereotypes about Ontario women who wear niqabs.

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Woman to remove niqab to testify in Toronto case | Toronto Star

2014/01/15 Leave a comment

While I was not a fan of the Supreme Court ruling, which left open the door to the niqab in court, the application of the test seems to have been reasonable in ruling that she must remove the niqab to testify, including before the accused.

Woman to remove niqab to testify in Toronto case | Toronto Star.

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Niqab : acceptez et taisez-vous maintenant! | Le Devoir

2013/11/28 Leave a comment

Not a bad opinion piece on the niqab, nuanced, by Karima Brikh, reminding us of the risks of tolerating anything. The niqab represents separation, not integration, on any number of levels. The fact that the daycare workers who provoked the debate take off their niqab when with the children or the mothers reinforces that point:

Je ne crois pas qu’il faille interdire le niqab partout et suis convaincue qu’il ne faut pas s’en prendre à ces femmes, puisqu’elles ne se réduisent absolument pas à leur voile. Je pense que derrière chacune de ces forteresses de tissu se cache une femme avec un vécu qui mérite d’être connu, ainsi que des rêves et une personnalité singulière. Mais c’est justement pourquoi il nous reste encore le droit, peut-être même l’obligation morale, de ne pas normaliser tous les symboles présents qui sont synonymes d’une oppression à laquelle nous ne pouvons consentir. Avons-nous encore la possibilité de remettre en question publiquement le bien-fondé de telles pratiques au Québec sans risquer l’opprobre ?

Sous la gentillesse, on semble trouver une forme de relativisme et même de renoncement. Quand nous disons qu’« au fond, ça ne nous dérange pas », je soupçonne que plusieurs d’entre nous ne connaissent rien de la vie de ces femmes et n’en côtoient aucune. Ça ne nous « dérange pas », car nous consentons à les marginaliser dans leur différence, pourvu qu’elles ne viennent pas bousculer nos habitudes. Et comme nous souhaitons ne jamais risquer d’avoir l’air intolérants, nous n’osons même plus user de notre sens critique. À ce stade, ce n’est peut-être plus de tolérance dont nous faisons preuve, mais davantage de lâcheté et d’aveuglement volontaire. Et ce, sans niqab ni burqa…

Niqab : acceptez et taisez-vous maintenant! | Le Devoir.

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