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Today's Top News
Quebec's Witch Hunt Against Niqabi Minority
Governments intervene against the religious wishes of Jehovah's Witness families to give blood transfusions to save the lives of their kin. The Quebec government wants to intervene to deny health care to women whose religious wish is to wear the niqab.
In Saudi Arabia, Iran and parts of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, police or vigilante militias crack down on women not wearing the niqab or the burqa. In Quebec, authorities want to crack down on women who do.
Quebec officials have already chased down one niqab-wearing woman to oust her from a second French language class after she had been hounded out of her first. The bureaucrats are emulating the gendarmes of autocrats Kemal Ataturk of Turkey in the 1920s and the first Shah of Iran in the 1930s who persecuted women wearing either the niqab or the hijab.
It is scary when a state feels compelled to keep women either covered or uncovered.
It is scarier when majorities in democracies feel threatened by a minority - in this case, a tiny minority within the Muslim minority. Or feel the need to crush an isolated religious or cultural practice. Had such attitudes prevailed in an earlier era, we may not have been blessed today with Hutterites, Orthodox Jews, Sikhs and others in the rich religious tapestry of Canada.
Across Europe and now sadly in Quebec, populations and governments are in a tizzy over a few dozen niqabi women. Sadder still, Quebec is not only out of step with the rest of Canada but has taken a bigoted leap ahead of Europe, the historic home of Islamophobia.
In France - where out of 5 million Muslims, 367 wear the niqab (as counted by the domestic intelligence service, no less) - a parliamentary panel has pondered the issue for a year and suggested a ban from schools and hospitals but nowhere else.
In Denmark - where out of 100,000 Muslims, there are less than 200 niqabis (as estimated by the ministry of social affairs), the government is still mulling a ban.
In Quebec, less than 25 women are said to wear the niqab - of whom only 10 turned up last year at the Montreal office of the provincial health board out of 118,000 visitors.
Yet the obsession with the niqab continues. On the day Jean Charest tabled his anti-niqab bill, Hydro Quebec's $3.2 billion deal to take over NB Power and gain access to the lucrative U.S. market collapsed - with nary a public concern.
His bill calls not only for showing the face for the legitimate purposes of a photo ID and security. It also bans niqabis from working for, or even receiving services from, government and the broader public sector. These taxpayers may be denied all schooling, including French language instruction, and all non-emergency health care, including regular checkups.
Charest rationalized it on the basis of gender equity, the secular nature of the state, the need to integrate immigrants, and the importance of personal interaction. Except that:
The giant crucifix in the National Assembly will stay.
Property and other tax breaks given the churches will remain, including for the Catholic Church, where women must remain in the pews and not ascend to the pulpit.
Niqabi women will be driven out of the public sphere, end up with less personal interaction with others and be ghettoized. It is a strange way to advance gender equity.
It is argued, as by Nicolas Sarkozy in France, that banning the niqab is not anti-Islamic, since it may not be a religious requirement, as opined by a senior Egyptian cleric last year. We elect politicians not to propound fatwas but to implement secular, democratic laws in an equitable manner for one and all. As for those enamoured of the authoritarian ways of Egypt, they are free to move there.
We are witnessing collective hysteria, prompting even liberal governments to cave in. It was not a pretty sight to see Charest, a Liberal, competing for headlines with Ann Coulter, the Muslim-baiting neo-con from America.
That's democracy in action, it can be said. But we have seen many ugly manifestations of the popular will before. Targeting the niqabis may not be in the same league as past Canadian sins against some minorities but history should provide us with the perspective to pause.
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77 Comments so far
Show AllI somewhat agree with Siddiqui, but one thing:
Article one of the French constitution:
La France est une Republique indivisible, laique, democratique et sociale.
Yes, that is what France's constitution states, however, Quebec is in Canada. It is a Canadian province not a "provence" of la republique de France.
That is in reference to Siddiqui's statements about France.
My mistake, sorry. Because Siddiqui's article was about the new Quebec ruling, I assumed Quebec, not the small paragraph about France.
Let's put some of Mr. Siddiqui's hyperbole into perspective.
"The Quebec government wants to intervene to deny health care to women whose religious wish is to wear the niqab."
This implies that Quebec does not issue health cards to women who choose to wear a niqab, but is not the case... the Quebec police do not keep a list of niqab wearing women not eligible for universal health benefits like non niqab wearing women. Quebec simply requires women to temporarily show their faces for identification purposes. Once they're identified, they can put it back over their face. Following Mr. Siddiqui's logic, surgeons violate religious rights by forcing women to remove the niqab to receive life saving surgery.
"In Saudi Arabia, Iran and parts of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, police or vigilante militias crack down on women not wearing the niqab or the burqa. In Quebec, authorities want to crack down on women who do."
A very unfair comparison. There are no police or vigilante militias in Quebec patrolling the streets in search of niqab-wearing women to harrass and control in forcing them to remove the niqab.
"The bureaucrats are emulating the gendarmes of autocrats Kemal Ataturk of Turkey in the 1920s and the first Shah of Iran in the 1930s who persecuted women wearing either the niqab or the hijab."
Again, very unfair comparison. "Persecuted" in the context of Ataturk's gendarmes has a vastly different definition when juxtaposed with a requirement to display your face in order to receive free government sponsored language education.
"It is scary when a state feels compelled to keep women either covered or uncovered."
Again. the author's incendiary rhetoric implies Quebec has banned niqabs and burkas from the streets of Quebec - that if the police find you walking down Rue Ste. Catherine, you'll be asked to remove your niqab or face the consequences. This is simply not the case, and this rhetoric is patently reprehensible.
In other parts of the article, the author makes some strong points, but they're completely overshadowed by his need in the first half of the article to stretch truths into something melodramatic to increase the force and urgency of the 'injustices' befalling female Muslim fundamentalists - calling upon imagery of national police and social militia groups patrolling the streets in search of niqab-wearing law breakers. This is unprofessional, inflammatory, and unnecessary; Mr. Siddiqui should be ashamed.
Adhoc is absolutely right. Mr. Siddiqui has exaggerated and misrepresented the reality of the situation.
I am, however, concerned about the motives of premier Charest and his Liberal government. Charest is a sleazy politician with a record of betraying his voters by switching parties; he is currently a neoliberal who like many of his ilk (the Clintons, Blair, Sarkozy) make loud brouhahas about their support of progressive social causes (gay rights, laïcité) while doing major social damage with their economic policies and gutting of labour rights that have a negative impact on the very women and immigrants they claim to wish to protect -they are also first to be affected by neoliberal engineering.
It is also true that when Québec emerged after the Quiet Revolution of the 1960's as the most socially and politically progressive province in Canada, it was the Parti Québécois, the socialist separatist party,not the Liberal part, which pushed most strongly for real social equality and change and enacted the most progressive legislation while in office; now the Bloc Québécois in Parliament is the only party in Ottawa really to hold the most consistent progressive positions on practically everything from militarism to social welfare (much more consistent than the NDP). The Liberals, both at the provincial and the federal levels, are opportunistic chameleons whose policies and programs respond to political winds and perceive public pressure.
But we must remember that the nationalist-fascist tendency in that province is still alive and well. Québécois who consider themselves "pure laine" (thoroughbred descendants of the original French colonists) have always looked with misgivings at every wave of immigrants and at difference, except of course at the French and the Belgians who came after WWII, many of them former Nazi collaborators or sympathizers who blended in quite nicely and became economic and social leaders in the province. Even the earliest wave,the Italians, had a rough time being accepted, even though they were Roman Catholics; fortunately many of them intermarried with French Canadians and the differences were largely erased. But ask the Haitians, the Latin Americans,the Vietnamese, the Arabs and the Africans, how they have fared outside the umbrella of the Parti Québécois,the Bloc Québécois and the smaller left-wing organizations.
The reactionary sectors of the Catholic church periodically fanned the flames of anti-immigrant feeling in the past -- some historians believe that when the federal government wanted to pass the conscription bill in WW II, they bought off the opposition of Quebec fascists and the Catholics by pledging to keep the Jewish refugees out of Canada - another wonderful highlight in Canad's history.
From the 1930's through the 1950's, the Catholic church could count on the fascistic premier Duplessis to ban and jail Jehovah's Witnesses; Duplessis did the medical establishment a favour by banning and jailing chiropractors as late as 1959, and of course he served the corporate sector by sending his goons against strikers (look up the asbestos strike) and enforcing the infamous "padlock law" which shut down,without due process, union offices and printing presses considered subversive. This is the history that most of us thought had been overcome.
Now, in times of economic insecurity, comes increased pressure from the grassroots to draw the line. Many of those old prejudices might be surfacing, in new clothing (pardon the pun).
Are Charest & Co. drawing the line on "protecting the identity of Québec" with the issue of the veil in order to retain the votes of québécois who are increasingly mistrustful of the (neo)liberals? Could it also be a subliminal message to the Jewish and the progressive lay voter that the "muslim threat" will be nipped in the bud and that the liberals should be reelected?
While I, for one, am a firm supporter of drawing a line against the encroachment of religious law in a secular state, I believe we still need to question the underlying motives of the government, especially that one.
Very good history of Quebec politics and I do believe that the snake, Charest, is baiting his hook and also redirecting the Quebec gaze from his neo-con games of reducing our social benefits and safety nets. Many of us have fought to prevent his corporate backed assaults against the peoples in favour of the wealthy few who have always remained loyal to Duplessis' gang of looters who never did leave the scene after his death in the 1960s.
I think we can all agree that what motivates far too many Politicians is the cult of their "self". We always have to be careful when they are creating another of these "issues". Nine times out of ten their motives have nothing to do with the issue at hand.
I think we can also all agree that Adhoc's and hoodeet's posts have help round out -or surpassed in info-quality- the original article.
Thanks to both of ya.
-matti.
I disagree strongly that people should be entitled to public religious display in a secular state.
It is not possible to scratch a religious display without finding something underneath that's offensive to human rights. At bottom it's always an attempt to subjugate women, an implicit assertion that the displayer is a member of a superior class entitled to privilege, or something else similarly toxic.
"True Believers" should be made to live every day with the knowledge that their religion conveys no special status in a secular state.
[I disagree strongly that people should be entitled to public religious display in a secular state.]
Canada is not a secular country. Unlike the USA, there are two 'official' religions in Canada. Sure, we have religious freedom, but don't think that we're not officially a xtian country.
We do not have two official religions in Canada. The Charter makes this more then a little clear.
Section two of the Charter addresses this directly.Canada has no official or State religion.
There ARE two official languages.
Now as to this Niqab. Several years ago the Governmnet of Ontario was considering introducing the concept of the Shariah into Canadian courts. Womens groups amongst the Muslim population fought against this claiming it would turn them into second class Citizens. There are all manner of laws on the books for retailers and governmnet officials that demand a photo ID be used. Should we refuse to issue drivers licences to women in Niqabs?
So the question I put to you is when a RELIGOUS tradition compromises the rights as guaranteed by the Charter, or of legal requirements (passports, phot ids etc) which prevails? Would you accept just as accept female circumcision if a people claimed it a Religous right?
I would also point out that in a Place called "Bountiful" In British Columbia, a group of Old men use the shelter of religous freedom to marry multiple wives with many of them being assigned a husband while they are still girls. Boys born in this colony are sent out with a one way bus ticket when they reach 16 unless they are "approved" so that the old men (Many in their 60's) have a wider choice of mates.
The children from birth are brainwashed into believing this gods ways and any questioning of it is a sin.
Would you suggest that trying to halt this practice is an intereference with Freedom of religion and that the State should just ignore it?
Now I an not speaking to the Niqab incident in particular. I am speaking in broader terms . If The State has no right to limit the wearing of the Niqab soleley because it a "freedom of religion issue" and nothing else to be considered, then The State can not do anything about Bountiful.
The charter does say that we don't have an official religion, but when the country was formed/founded we did not start out as anything other than a Christian country with two 'official' religions. Or at least, we didn't suppress the rights of religious minorities (when the religion was large enough and at the time a credible institution.
[So the question I put to you is when a RELIGOUS tradition compromises the rights as guaranteed by the Charter, or of legal requirements (passports, phot ids etc) which prevails? Would you accept just as accept female circumcision if a people claimed it a Religous right?]
I'm an atheist and an anti-theist, of course I'm going to point out that the law is what should be followed. Actually I'm kinda in favour of banning all religious practices, but I doubt that could be accomplished. Mutilating the genitals of children, whether they be male or female, is something I oppose. It's not just in Bountiful that the children of our country are abused by the nutty religious folk, although they are some of the more nutty ones.
Stop to think for a moment. Let's say that the State has a right to prevent people from wearing the niqab.
So why stop there? Does the state not have right to prevent people from wearing any other item of clothing? Why not?
Furthermore, your comparison of Bounty, at least what you have described of Bounty, and female circumcision, with niqabs is a poor comparison.
The key distinguishing point that you gloss over is age.
You don't need to ban people from wearing niqabs to ban them from getting married to people who are not of the legal age. You don't need to ban people from niqabs to ban them from buying beer at the age of 10. You don't need to ban people from wearing niqabs to ban them from having their girl CHILDREN circumcised.
You are comparing adult women to children. Like it or not, after a certain age, society decides that people can decide how they want to lead their lives, even if it means wearing niqabs, or getting tattooed, or getting piercings, or whatever. No matter how much other people think how stupid doing so is. As long the wearing of niqabs, or getting tattooed, or getting piercings, or whatever, is done so by consenting adults, and is not harming other non-consenting adults, it really isn't any of your business.
If you are genuinely concerned about these niqab wearing women, you should be trying to find out WHY they choose to this, whether there is pressure, threats of physical violence from their families etc on them to do so. If there isn't, it really isn't any of your business.
But they are not BANNING the wearing of the Niqab. They are stating that persons wearing such must reveal thier faces for the taking of Photographs and the like.
I stated the Niqab a relatively minor issue from MY perspective. I have no issue with women wearing them BUT were I running a business just as example where they law proscribed I see a photo ID before servicing a customer, I do not want to be thrown in Jail if that person refuses to show their face and I decline service.
Nor would I want to be labled "racist" for doing so.
My larger point is there is a time when *I* believe the Charter of Rights and freedoms and basic human rights take precedence over religous practices and each Government must approach this in a balanced manner.
It my belief that the cover of religion is often used as a tool of oppression and this includes ALL religions and not just that of the Muslim faith . Those at Bountiful are Christian. I feel that when it gets to the point where the "freedom of religion" leads to the indoctrination of a population, it goes too far. I feel when it leads to people killing doctors that oppose Abortions or beating up gays or stealing anothers land because "god gave it to us" it goes TOO far.
The Niqab from my perspective does not fall into that category but I turn your very arguement back against you.
Say that the state has NO right in interfering with religous practices.....Where does THAT lead?
As I said in my reply to Mairead, there are obviously certain situations where you cannot wear whatever you want. You obviously cannot wear a full face mask into a bank, for example. And similarly photo ID etc.
Of course religion is often used as a tool of oppression. But the solution isn't to try to save people from themselves from on high, by being oppressive yourself.
"Those at Bountiful are Christian. I feel that when it gets to the point where the "freedom of religion" leads to the indoctrination of a population, it goes too far. I feel when it leads to people killing doctors that oppose Abortions or beating up gays or stealing anothers land because "god gave it to us" it goes TOO far.
The Niqab from my perspective does not fall into that category but I turn your very arguement back against you.
Say that the state has NO right in interfering with religous practices.....Where does THAT lead?"
It isn't a matter of saying that the State has no right to interfere with religious practices. It does. Just as it has the right to interfere with non-religious practices (the usual caveat about consenting adults, not harming other non-consenting adults)
Treat religious believers like you treat everyone else, like I said in my reply to Mairead above. Everyone is equal under civil law. If you get married to someone below the legal age of adult responsibility, you get jailed, regardless if you are Methodist, Episcopalian, Catholic, Orthodox, Shia, Sunni, Sufi, Zen Buddhist, Theravada Buddhist, Mahayana Buddhist, Wiccan, Druid, a worshiper of Bast, a worshiper of Lucifer, or atheist.
If you sell alcohol to a 10 year old, you get prosecuted, you lose your alcohol licence, regardless of whether you hear voices in your head or not.
This is the fundamental basis of the concept of secularism: everyone equal under the law, no exceptions. No one gets special treatment, equally no one gets discriminated against.
Exactly, this is an issue of verifying identity. I think Quebec could have handled it somewhat better by allowing these women to use the right and left forefingers as identifiers for most purposes, including possibly driver's licenses. [I understand Milwaukee police now use a portable fingerprint detector for such identification purposes].
I doubt that would work for passports but if they go ahead with retinal scans and fingerprints for biometric passports that perhaps an old fashioned picture would not be required.
This post wins the thread, as far as I'm concerned.
Could be handled better with the possibility of non-face identification.
But it is fair as long as everyone gets the same treatment, no?
Forget a bank.
Could I show up for these language classes in a ski mask, swear that I am who I claim to be, and be allowed to take the class without showing my face?
If not, then this is a case where an attempt to stretch the rules to accomodate a vanishingly small minority could have been undertaken, but wasn't, not a case of the majority depriving a vanishingly small minority of essential rights.
-matti.
I hate to repeat myself but nobody is forcing this woman to not wear her Niquab in the streets or in her home only for official purposes, try to wear a ski mask in a bank.
Fine, then, but can one draw the line simply at the face covering for orthodox Muslim women?
The Canadian government allowed Sikh RCMP officers to wear their turban and Sikh students to wear their ritual daggers to school, and Jewish and Mennonite women and girls can wear their nunnish dresses and Jews and Muslims wear their head coverings and the males their beards...
Moreover, perhaps we should force men of all persuasions, religious or other, to shave their beards, which obscure facial recognition and expression? Heck, didn't a big flowing beard help hide a Serbian militia leader wanted for war crimes?
No, of course I don't think the line should be drawn at the Muslims! Religious practice of *any* kind should be restricted to non-public space, as sex and body-waste evacuation are restricted.
As to beards, if beards are a recognisable religious ostentation, then yes: shave or be fined. If they're just decoration, then those who do it for religious reasons get a pass unless there's something about the style that sets them apart.
Isn't there a significant qualitative difference between hair that grows naturally on our faces and a clothing style that is culturally adopted?
Or more practically, how exactly would you word a Law attempting to delineate between hair-on-the-face for "religious ostentation" and "decoration"?
I'm afraid there's arbitrary or absolute authority hidden behind your stance.
-matti.
Isn't there a significant qualitative difference between hair that grows naturally on our faces and a clothing style that is culturally adopted?
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No. Facial hair is also "culturally adopted", or not.
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Or more practically, how exactly would you word a Law attempting to delineate between hair-on-the-face for "religious ostentation" and "decoration"?
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If the individual's religious preference can be reliably predicted by his facial hair (its presence, coloring, shaping, etc) then it's an offence. Scientific method.
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I'm afraid there's arbitrary or absolute authority hidden behind your stance.
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The same could be said (and is said!) about any social prohibition.
I don't think anyone can make a believable case for public religious display not being an implicit claim that the displayer is a member of a special, more worthy and entitled group.
In a secular, egalitarian society, anyone should feel free to privately believe in their own superiority, but they should not be free to assert that superiority in public. The flip side of my superiority is your inferiority. If I have the numbers, should I have the right to force you to "acknowledge" my belief in your inferiority, for example by requiring you to wear a yellow mogen David? Or by keeping you from living in certain parts of town? Or by stealing your land and killing you if you try to resist?
If I'm a member of a group more favored by the gods, then surely I have the right to do whatever I can get away with, including forcing you to conform to my beliefs.
The only way I can think of suppressing that kind of toxic grandiosity is for the social group to make clear that such beliefs are like any other anti-social ideation: you have every right to it, but only in private. Nobody will try to control your thoughts, just your behavior.
No?
You would have a great Stalinist apparatchik with your "scientific" method.
"n a secular, egalitarian society, anyone should feel free to privately believe in their own superiority, but they should not be free to assert that superiority in public."
Have you ever heard of the concept of "free speech"? Or have you been reading too much Stalin?
Either support that damned insult or apologise.
I apologise for posting in anger and calling you a Stalinist.
Reread you own argument.
"The flip side of my superiority is your inferiority. If I have the numbers, should I have the right to force you to "acknowledge" my belief in your inferiority, for example by requiring you to wear a yellow mogen David? Or by keeping you from living in certain parts of town? Or by stealing your land and killing you if you try to resist?
If I'm a member of a group more favored by the gods, then surely I have the right to do whatever I can get away with, including forcing you to conform to my beliefs.
"
Do you realise that you are in effect arguing for this position?
Thank you for your apology, which of course I accept in the spirit offered.
I'm not sure what you mean by your question.
I certainly am saying that anyone's assertion of superiority is implicitly an assertion that others are inferior. If my way of doing things is the way approved by God, then your different way is obviously inferior to mine! Nobody who has some special way of signifying their group membership believes that their group is just one among equals. They believe that their group's way is *special* and *better* - usually *The One True Way*. The Jews, for example, are *THE* "Chosen People". Xians are *THE* successors to the Jews. Muslims are the followers of *THE* final and most important Prophet. Et cetera.
So could you explain what you mean?
From my standpoint, I'm arguing *against* the idea that any religion has any sort of lock on The Truth or on Divine Favor. I strongly disagree that any group should have the right to claim in public, however implicitly -e.g. by jewellery, dress, hair, etc- that their group has a lock on Divine Favor. I believe they should have to either prove their assertion (which of course they can't possibly!) or avoid implying the claim. What do you see as being wrong with that?
Mairead - If the individual's religious preference can be reliably predicted by his facial hair (its presence, coloring, shaping, etc) then it's an offence. Scientific method.
I am English, white and Anglo-Saxon. I have a, so I'm told, "large and bushy" beard, of varied colours - grey in parts, black in others, brown in others and even reddish in places. I trim/shave my moustache.
"Scientifically" predict my religious prefence from this description.
I can't predict it, of course, since plenty men wear beards for reasons other than religion. That's my point, and I'm sorry you didn't get it: if it's not an obvious religious marker, it's presumptively just decoration.
Peyots are religious markers: nobody wears them but frum yiden. Niqabs are religious markers. "Dog-collars" are religious markers. Beards worn with a particular turban style are religious markers. Cross pendants are religious markers. Cassocks, habits, miters, etc are religious markers. On women, wigs combined with certain clothing styles are religious markers. Saffron-colored robes and shaved heads are religious markers. Etc.
Well, this is the issue of reconciling secularity, with freedom of belief.
If you believe that believers should have no special status in a secular state, then equally, you should also believe that they should be able to wear whatever they want no? No special treatment either way. No tax breaks, no government funding, no official presence in government, but equally wear whatever you want as long as you are not acting in a governmental capacity.
I agree entirely. Lift all tax exemptions from every religious organization in every province of Canada, even the "distinct society" of Québec. Make every church and temple and mosque and synagogue pay property tax and sales tax. Find some legal way to separate the part of the organization with the charitable status that encourages individual donations, from the part of the institution that lobbies for political causes.
Or simply remove the charitable status for anything but charitable works such as soup kitchens and shelters.Too many institutions benefit from tax-exempt status for their "educational" work, which usually involves proselytism or indoctrination, and for their "religious" work. Heck, if you want to support a religion you really believe in, you shouldn't need the incentive of a tax break to support it.
Too much power accrues to every religious organization,from the smallest struggling community synagogue and temple and storefront church to the biggest cathedrals. Let religions use religious, ethnic, historical, or other cultural incentives to keep their coffers solvent, but not the subsidies of all taxpayers which enable donors to write off their contributions.
No. Anything that doesn't amount to a claim of special status and privilege, okay. Religious display is *implicitly* such a claim, and because it cannot be impeached and opens the door to all sorts of anti-social craziness, should be banned in public.
Imagine a religion that requires nakedness. Should that be okay?
I'd be fine with it.
But from a health and hygene sort of POV, I'd say no, it would not be okay. ;)
Do you realize the can of worms we would open if we used your standard of banning not just mere "(CLAIMS) to special status and privilege" but even IMPLICIT "claim(s)"?!?
Would we ban sports jerseys (off the field at least), Party t-shirts, and Fraternity/Club neckties? Aren't these all implicit claims to special status?
What about mayoral sashes, Miss Alabama tiaras, and Member of Congress pins, hell even police badges or Navy tatoos?
I'm guessing you didn't mean to frame your argument in this way that would allow such extension past reasonable?
But if Roman Catholic Bishops are denied their rings, why should a Graduating Class be allowed theirs? Merely because one is religious and one is secular? But don't both imply "special status"? Also, is anyone REALLY offended by either? And if so, should society care about their offended sensibilities?
-matti.
I'm sure you're just being provocative, since of course you recognise that claims of divine favor (or police power) are quite different to claims of being a footie club supporter or a beauty-pageant winner.
*facepalm*
When the craziness appears you can ban it. That is the fundamental basis of law in most democratic western societies. You don't ban something just because it *might* open to the door to craziness in some exaggerated slippery slope scenario. Allowing freedom of speech, allowing people to argue about politics, might lead to people inciting violence. Ban free speech. You ban the craziness when it appears. Just because you allow people to wear crosses or whatever, doesn't mean that you MUST allow them to walk around naked. You can close the door on walking around naked if you decide that banning around naked is unacceptable and harms society, by corrupting the minds of impressionable children, or whatever.
And the idea that a claim to special status should be banned is equally deranged. People have a right to CLAIM special status. That is FREE SPEECH. They do NOT have a right to society ACCEPTING that claim. That is a key difference.
"Free speech", eh? Try saying something that could even be *construed* as a threat to some politician like Obummer.
As long as some speech is criminalised, there is no free speech.
Cant' address the issue?
"As long as some speech is criminalised, there is no free speech."
More rationalist "scientific" idiocy. So, since you don't get to make threats against "Obummer", since there is no free speech, let's throw you in jail then, for criticising "Obummer".
Also, since there is no free speech, since you support people being forced to dress in a certain way, let's make all atheists get crosses tatooed into both their cheeks. Afterall, Christians are the vast majority in America. They are superior. That's the position you support.
And while we're at it, since there is no free speech, anyone who dares to criticise Christianity is thrown in jail, to be supervised by Catholic priests.
I don't think I'm following your argument.
Is there "free speech"? Or is there only "free speech as long as you don't say anything that seriously threatens a member of the ruling class"? To me, the evidence is all on the side of the latter. If you'd disagree, please offer your evidence. My evidence is that "threatening the President", even in a factually empty way, is a criminal act good for years in a federal prison.
If we live in a classless society, as is nominally the case, how can even the *appearance* of threatening some officeholder -nominally an employee- be made a heinous crime? What's the generally-accepted principle that supports such a criminalisation?
Mairead- Imagine a religion that requires nakedness. Should that be okay?
Many Jains go naked rather than kill animals for clothing. India doesn't have a problem with this. Many countries in Europe allow nudist areas out of respect for people's beliefs (whether religious or not) in their right to go naked.
I'm sorry, but I have to agree with the other poster - you do show a very strong Stalinist tendency.
Support the insult or apologise.
What about a pendant depicting the Yin and Yang?
Doesn't this symbol not only acknowledge the balance between Masculine and Feminine, but also invoke in the mind a reconciliation of Opposites that applies to the world as a whole and explicitly denies the reality of "superior" classes?
How would, say, a small pentacle over the threshold of a house or business be "offensive to human rights", exactly? A mechanism to preserve good and luck and well-being to the owner/proprietor, and interesting looking decoration to the visitor/customer -an offense to no one (no one reasonable that is).
You are talking about a sort of Official Atheist State, not a Secular one, I think.
I'm not sure how popular that would be.
-matti.
Put your pentacle, mezuza, or horseshoe over your door if you like --but hide it. Similarly with your pendant--wear it under your visible garment.
If the artifact has any power, it has it regardless of whether it can be seen. The only reason to make it visible is to assert your status as a believer.
[It is scarier when majorities in democracies feel threatened by a minority - in this case, a tiny minority within the Muslim minority. Or feel the need to crush an isolated religious or cultural practice.]
Surely the author of the article is aware of the fact that the Quebec Government is utterly terrified and scornful of anything that is not their view of being 'properly' French. If you're a tourist from another country you might be able to talk to the people and the police and have them respond politely if you're not using French. When I visited the province, I was spat at because I'm an English speaking Canadian. Although I am sure that there are decent Quebecers who do believe in human rights, I have yet to meet one of them. The ones I have met believe that there are some who are deserving of more rights than others, those some are the French speakers, the others are everyone else.
I live in Montreal. I am a French speaker, a Quebecoise. I have lived elsewhere in Canada and am constantly amazed by these stories about being "spat at" because of being an Anglophone. Most of my friends here are actually from the Western provinces and speak minimal French, yet none have claimed to have been "spat at." Nor do we tend to spit upon Spanish, German, Russian speakers, etc.
This targeting of the Francophone and the province of Quebec is as xenophobic as the new Quebec law against the wearing of the niqab. It is devisive at a time when all Canadians need to stand together against the present governments - provincial and federal.
Promoting hatred of the "other" out of bigotry and prejudice creates just the sort of division and regionalization of Canadians that the Harper government depends on.
And yes, I have met some of the dozen or so niqab wearing women and they are not monsters but women who still feel highly insecure in a paranoid society.
Thank you for speaking up, Voice Apart! It's a voice that needs to be heard over and over.
I agree with you that there are different xenophobic elements at play here and they need to be challenged.
There are others too, including the xenophobia and fears brought by immigrants who cling to strict codes as a way of protecting their identity as minorities. As a secular, non-practicing Jew I have always resented having orthodox Jewish and Muslim males recoil from innocent, spontaneous handshakes and even stand aside to avoid being touched by my shadow. (And how many women are forced to wear the hijab by their families? And do we know for a fact that once a hijab-wearer becomes more comfortable and lose her fears in her new homeland she will feel confident enough to remove it?
I contradict myself now by asking what about the Canadian-, Québec- or US- or British-born converts to Islam who choose to use the hijab? The argument of the "adaptation" doesn't hold at all.)
Then there is the anti-French sentiment that boiled over in New Brunswick, that hotbed of orangemen and sympathizers of empire (you know: "bilingual today, french tomorrow", or "We won fair and square and they-the French-should shut up") over the NB Power sale to Hydro Québec. They muddied the waters of the debate and gave a weapon to the defenders of the neoliberal deal, when in fact the problem had nothing to do with a separatist "French" province taking over our resources, but a host of other problems.
Canada, like New Brunswick, seems doomed to be forever dysfunctional. I hope Québec overcomes that.
Yes, the various agents of neo-liberalism often resort to "hot buttons" to push their agendas behind the "veil" (haha) of emotionally wrought "issues." Charest is now doing that just as Harper uses the Separatist/Sovereignthy button to his advantage. When he wants to push an agenda unpopular to most Canadians - he brings up the Separatist Bloc spectre. When he tries to woo the Quebec voters, he uses the Quebec is sovereign sop. Either way and at all governmental levels, this seems to work quite well to divide Canadians.
Religion is another perfect emotional hot spot to play on people's fears and prejudices. You are very correct when you say that Caucasian or Occidental converts who chose to display religious garb pokes holes in the "adaptation" and "accommodation" arguments.
Granted when I visited the province the first Referendum was going on, but yes, I was spat at. It was a minor thing, really, I was speaking french to someone, but when I used an english word someone else in the crowd spat at my feet and used words that I didn't learn in the classroom (I did learn them in the schoolyard, however). It's pretty funny now, I think.
Of course the women aren't monsters, and they're not the only religious nuts who would like not to have their photos taken for ID. There's a batch of them here in Alberta, can't remember which branch of the Christian faith they are.
So you used a single isolated incident that happened at a time when the Tory Mulroney government had whipped up an emotional furor through his referendums to insinuate that the French in Quebec are so blatantly discriminatory towards English speakers that we spit on them. If you are carrying a grudge from over 25 years ago to make a point, what is it? You hate all Francophones based on one stupid person's action?
This is what keeps Canadians, even those who think alike, divided so that political hacks can take over our democratic institutions destroying our cohesive calls for social and economic justice.
Yes, most Canadians do believe that we are all in this together which is why we don't mind paying extra taxes so that we have single payer health care and food in all our children's bellies so they can achieve in educational endeavours.
No, I referred to a single incident at a time when Levesque was running his first Referendum. That was when Trudeau was Prime minister. (grin) The only Referendum (the damn yankee wannabe) Mulroney held was over his idiotic amendment to the constitution, and we didn't vote that down because of anti-Quebecois sentiment, but because no one in their right mind trusted that smarmy git.
Of course if you want to know where I learned hatred it happened in Alberta, not Quebec, I was a student at a nice little French Catholic school, where I learned that the English were only interested in annihilating the French people, language and culture. The teachers that were the most anglophopic were the ones from Quebec. I do try not to hate the French, but I'm not carrying a grudge from the idiot in Quebec, it's the arseholes that happened to be French that I met in Alberta who I really hated.
I could also have talked about all of the Quebecers who I met in the military, most of whom were quite cool, but the ones who were the Quebecois soverignists were uniformly racist sobs who I wouldn't have trusted half as far as I could have thrown them. What struck me most was how similar they were to the Alberta Nationalists, who were and are just as zenophobic, racist and idiotic in how they view the world.
LMAO! Smarmy git indeed, Saturnalia! Yes, I cannot and will not defend every Quebecer who thinks that their sh_t does not stink, even those in the forces (though as a former airforce brat, I haven't met many sovereigntist enlistees)and Levesque was the reason my parents left Quebec - we were raised, as many Quebecers, to see ourselves as Canadians before the French part and that was well before Levesque. I still think Trudeau may have been an elitist, but he did much for Canada, fuddle duddle and all ;-p. If nothing, he enlivened Canada's image, though I despised the horrible war measures act. It was truly alarming to see military armed guards on all the street corners!
It would appear that should you and I ever meet, we would be able to discuss things quite well and agree with much.