PQ, secularism, burqa, etc.
February 11, 2010 - 6:00pm
Here we go again...
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PQ categorically says "no" to the burqa
This story broke February 5 in Le Soleil, citing unidentified sources within the party, who say an announcement will be forthcoming soon about (variously) the wearing of "ostentatious religious symbols" by public service employees, and/or the beginnings of the elaboration of a "Secularism Charter" by the PQ.
Of course, Le Soleil chooses to focus on the burqa, and makes sure to quote both Jason Kenney and Michael Ignatieff as saying that what people wear is a matter of their individual freedom.
Just thought I'd open this thread to let you all know that something's coming.
The PQ is a racist organization. Money and the ethnic vote...
Um, that does not seem helpful to me, E. Tamaran, although I am definitely bothered by the doctrine of laïcité/secularism. Damn -- I always get into so much trouble when I comment on this topic.
I learned my civil liberties from the French (older guys, though), so the French version of secularism drives me bats because it is so not what Rousseau and the gang were talking about.
I read that report in Le Soleil and my first reaction is to scream for help. What will defend us against politicians who want to defend "our values"? Gah! The basic principles and structures codified in the Charter are necessary, but they are codified and they are the law. Everything else is indeed, a "value," and I can guarantee just about every politician I've ever met that I do not share many many of his/her values, and the Charter says I don't have to.
I hate this crappy talk about values, y'know? To me, it is so essentially right-wing, or in historical terms it is commissar-talk. On this continent, it is mushy-minded Disneyfied talk (often the disguise adopted by deeply cynical politicians who want to lull you), but in France it is also pretty conservative and bully-ish. I remember the horror of dissident Turkish writers, many of whom were facing legal assaults from the nationalist and "secularist" heirs of Attaturk back home (and I think it's fair to call those guys Stalinist), when misguided (read: self-righteous) French deputies decided to pass a law making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide, thinking they were thereby supporting the Turkish dissidents. One Turkish artist after another spoke up to say wtf? We're fighting for democracy, for freedom of conscience, and you're turning to a state-lowered boom on thought? Wtf?
I always get into trouble when I say these things. Time to feed the kitties anyway.
Um, that does not seem helpful to me, E. Tamaran, although I am definitely bothered by the doctrine of laïcité/secularism. Damn -- I always get into so much trouble when I comment on this topic.
I learned my civil liberties from the French (older guys, though), so the French version of secularism drives me bats because it is so not what Rousseau and the gang were talking about.
I read that report in Le Soleil and my first reaction is to scream for help. What will defend us against politicians who want to defend "our values"? Gah! The basic principles and structures codified in the Charter are necessary, but they are codified and they are the law. Everything else is indeed, a "value," and I can guarantee just about every politician I've ever met that I do not share many many of his/her values, and the Charter says I don't have to.
I hate this crappy talk about values, y'know? To me, it is so essentially right-wing, or in historical terms it is commissar-talk. On this continent, it is mushy-minded Disneyfied talk (often the disguise adopted by deeply cynical politicians who want to lull you), but in France it is also pretty conservative and bully-ish. I remember the horror of dissident Turkish writers, many of whom were facing legal assaults from the nationalist and "secularist" heirs of Attaturk back home (and I think it's fair to call those guys Stalinist), when misguided (read: self-righteous) French deputies decided to pass a law making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide, thinking they were thereby supporting the Turkish dissidents. One Turkish artist after another spoke up to say wtf? We're fighting for democracy, for freedom of conscience, and you're turning to a state-lowered boom on thought? Wtf?
I always get into trouble when I say these things. Time to feed the kitties anyway.
Um, you what doesn't seem helpful to me skadadl? Bringing up Turkey in a discussion about the PQ. Can we please stay on the topic?
She's discussing the rather extensive levels of secularism that are present in Kemalist ideology in Turkey. Which is actually a very interesting point of conversation vis a vis the PQ - which, although in no way directly related to said ideology - do derive a great deal from 'value based' secularism. As such, Turkey is usually a good example to contrast an example with. At least I think so.
Not to mention that it further goes into the French state, which also has an interesting relationship with secularism. Its declaration that the Armenian Genocide should be seen as such by law raises the spectre of majoritarian bullying and populist pulpit pitbulls - a more common and powerful occurance in France, historically anyways, than in North America. And it is interesting to see a very similar thing play out in NA. When France took it upon the state to become an arbiter of religious garb - and by extension what is ultimately a 'fashion police state' - it invoked a value based argument. That the burqa was 'alien' and contrary to secular French norms - much the same thing is happening in Quebec. To raise to law values based policing is a dangerous precident that undermines, in Canada, the Charter. It abbrogates the state from enforcing fundamental rights of the individual, allowing for group policing as a norm.
Which brings this back to Turkey, where for well over half a century such values were invoked to instill a regime that was clinically and chronically paranoid. This regime gradually became insulated from society and effectively became a military that ruled by edict - stepping in when someone wasn't toeing the line. Although I hardly think that the PQ can create a Kemalist military state, it is not unforeseeable that the elites and leaders of any party can become trapped within a narrow scope of thought, insulate themselves from societ and make intolerable, unrealistic decisions based on the values of an isolated core of individuals. Decisions that will effect the rights of the individual as they are subsumed into a series of groups to be controlled and modified.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Securalism does not mean that people don't have a right to religious expression - it means that the State does not base its laws on religion, enforce religion and guarantees religious freedom where it doesn't infringe on other rights and freedoms. A woman in a burqa, or a student with a kirpan or a woman with a crucifix necklace, etc. ,etc. ,etc. does not infringe on anyone else's freedom or rights to securalism. A securalist society will have various beliefs, religions or lack thereof by definition.
So sick of this shit.
One can't expect secular and progressive whites of christian lineage to understand.
When you're raised in a religious community, even if you nominally live in a "free society", you face tremendous peer pressure as well as pressure from "authorities" to conform to rigid rules. What a ban of the burqa does is it liberates muslim women questioning their faith to behave as they want to without fear of ostracism from their families and mullahs. I went to a religious jewish school, and I grew up in Cote-St-Luc, a very Jewish municipality. I'd get commentary if I was caught outside of school not wearing a yarmulke, and myriad other things.
Religion is about controlling people's lives, and the burqa is a means of control. It means Muslim women will feel different from other women, and it adds an obstacle to their relating with western or secular men.
ETA: A good analogy imo would be the concept of affirmative action, for example hiring quotas in the civil service. It's a sledgehammer of a policy meant to deal with a historic injustice. To people who are not familiar with the historic and continuing injustices, it not only doesn't make sense as a policy but it comes off as "reverse racism".
Of course I, and I assume most progressive minded people, are against the Burqua in an abstract sense. Personally I'm not too pro-organized religion either and hope that people are beginning to see it for the crap that it is. However, all that being said, this ban is a strawman or to be more accurate a straw-woman. I'd have a few questions about a proposal like this: one how many people even wear the Burqua in Quebec? How many Canada? I've only ever seen one woman wearing something approaching the Burqua in my entire life and I've known or seen many Muslim people. Two: how many of these people work in government agencies? Three: how many of them are even allowed by their husbands to work in the first place? It's all well and good to acculturate democratic values in people, but this seems like a stupid idea at best (and to agree with Skdadl) it seems like demagogic bullying at worst.
Anyways, my French is still questionable so I'd like some confirmation on this section to make sure I've understood it properly:
Mme Beaudoin, qui refuse de parler de la burqa, mais consent à s'exprimer sur cette éventuelle charte, indique que l'aile parlementaire de son parti est opposée aux signes religieux ostentatoires pour les «agents de l'État», que ce soit les employés de la fonction publique, les enseignants, ainsi que les personnels travaillant dans les hôpitaux et les services sociaux - les infirmières, par exemple.
Pas de voile pour eux, donc, si le PQ prenait le pouvoir.
«Aucun fonctionnaire ne doit porter de signes religieux ostentatoires», affirme la députée de Rosemont en invoquant le principe de la «neutralité de l'État».
So reading this, I get the idea, that even though the PQ has said no comment to the idea that they have a specific ban proposed. The idea I'm getting from Beaudoin's comments are that she's essentially let the cat out of the bag and confirmed that yes, they'll persue a charter with these bans in it.
VK, this is old news. The PQ adopted this position last year, if not earlier - i.e., that "agents of the state" should not wear "ostentatious" religious symbols. The ADQ (or what's left of it) has floated this again, and it seems the PQ is trying to grab that turf before someone else does. So, the position is old, but the push to put it in a Charter may be new.
Papal Bull, if you ever want a job as a speech writer, you're hired. In fact, I think I'm just gonna start sending you PMs that say "Please comment in X thread and sign with my handle." *wink*
In other words, Papal Bull said what I meant, only much better and with what I suspect is deeper knowledge.
The problem is, "secularism" ("laïcité") is used in a few places with a specific meaning that most North Americans are unfamiliar with, unless they run into versions of it in politics. It sounds good on the surface to most North Americans who believe in separation of church and state ... until they find out what it really means, which is something like a Robespierrist church. (I can do dramatic recreations of Robespierre's wigout in white robes singing hymns to Reason on request.)
Turkey and France for dramatically different historical reasons, and Quebec for reasons partly deriving from the French experience, have all struggled with what seems to them a tension, maybe even an opposition, between correct liberated thinking and classical civil liberties, especially freedom of conscience (ie: no one mucks with your mind).
Contrary to what you say, 500 Apples, I understand fine why people who've had to liberate themselves from oppressive religious (or other social or cultural) backgrounds would turn into zealots for pure rationalism and nothing but, and would feel they had to enlighten everyone else yesterday. But I emphasized "liberate themselves" there for a reason. No one ever liberates anyone else at this level.
You have every right to hold this opinion personally, and to argue it reasonably:
But in my view (and also in the view of the Charter), you have no right to make laws that force others to think as you do. We have many historical examples of horrors that have been wrought, not just in Quebec but in the rest of Canada, by well-intentioned but culturally limited people who thought they were saving those of other cultures from themselves. Feh on that.
Anyone who is genuinely concerned (I emphasize "genuine" -- this debate is so often transparently cynical and political) that vulnerable members of a community may be being oppressed has the option of finding enlightened groups or leaders in that community (I guarantee you that they're there, and they're smarter about the community than you are) and offering support. By support, I mean support. That means that you follow; you don't lead. You ask what you can do to help. If they want you to stuff envelopes, you stuff envelopes. Helping others requires humility, not grand pronouncements.
To me, there isn't much difference between the PQ deciding to get prescriptive about "values" of any kind and the McCarthyism of the CPCCA. Politicians with any public power to make law have utterly no business at all telling free citizens what their "values" are or should be, and it terrifies me to see how much of this is going on right now, here and elsewhere. Time we put the gasbags in their places, because this is not what they're elected for and not what they are competent to do.
The New Anti-Capitalist Party in France challenged the prevailing political correctness on the question of veils. That's all that matters.
Fascinating. Has anyone inquired if they are going after yamulkes and turbans too? Or the large felt hats the Hassidim wear? At what point is religious garb "ostentatious"? I would love to see the transcript of the interview if someone does ask a PQ spokesperson about this.
Somewhere, off in the distance, I hear the sound of Rene spinning in his grave.
webbietj, that's just offensive.
The "peaceful coexistence" of North Americans with ... all those brown-skinned men who were automatically investigated, many of them thrown into prison in the U.S. and abused there, right after 9/11? The ones who were wrongfully pursued by our own police and intel people? Innocent people sent to be tortured abroad? Or abandoned abroad? That peaceful coexistence?
Who are "Eurotrash"? Working-class Europeans? Rural Europeans? Deposed aristocrats? Do tell.
There are rational ways of talking about the French (and other) tradition of secularism, and then there's sheer bigotry. You seem to have chosen the latter.
Fascinating. Has anyone inquired if they are going after yamulkes and turbans too? Or the large felt hats the Hassidim wear? At what point is religious garb "ostentatious"? I would love to see the transcript of the interview if someone does ask a PQ spokesperson about this.
Or those little crucifixes many Catholics like to wear around their necks. Won't somebody think of the children!!!!!!!
And would athiests or agnostics be forbidden to wear large "question mark" medallions?
Getting back to the original topic here. I still don't understand why there seems to be this almost fetishistic obsession in Quebec with veils and burqas - while in the rest of Canada there is no debate about these at all. Here you have polls being done and major debates in the editorial pages in Quebec on whether or not to ban burqas in public places - even though there is literally maybe ONE woman in all of Quebec (if that) who even wants to wear one. There are probably way more in Toronto and Vancouver - and yet here no one seems to care!
Now the latest big "debate" is whether Jewish parochial schools should be "allowed" to teach on Sundays? What's the issue? If that's what they want to do - what business is it of anyone else??
There seem to be way too many people with far too much time on their hands who seem to get all hot and bothered about what OTHER people choose to do in their lives.
Why don't they woory more about child poverty and less about what other people choose to wear.
webbietalkjam, for a new babbler a lot of your threads have been flagged by more than one person. Dial it back.
"webbietalkjam"?
Yeah, I've emailed the mods - seems some posts are just disappearing - although in webbietalkjam's case, that may be a blessing.
Anyway, hopefully our techies will have a look at this.
Don't people ever get tired of this crap?
As dust settles from Bouchard's speech, change in Que. politics becomes clear
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jtF3XFz4TBMDOdedejg5R7DZ0fQg
Sounds like the PQ campaign song in the NEXT Quebec election will be a French version of "Tomorrow Belongs To Me".
Does Maurois not realize that this kind of politics could make the entire left/multicultural/francophone immigrant wing of the PQ swing to Quebec Solidaire out of simple disgust?
Look, this is simple. There is no "debate" in Québec over reasonable accommodation or identity politics or anything of the like. When Mario Dumont and the MSM tried to start one almost three years ago, I and others on babble pointed out that these were a handful of real or manufactured "incidents" (the spa, the sugar shack, Hérouxville...) that no one cared about. Result? The ADQ got destroyed, the Bouchard-Taylor Commission issued its report, and the "issue" was forgotten. Surely the PQ understands this. If they don't, and if they ever follow the path of racism or similar xenophobia, they will be deservedly destroyed as well. But so far, that exaggeration only exists in the minds of Bouchard and the (most non-Québec) MSM.
Watch out for the well paid separatists on this board giving their version of events. They tell you what they want you to know.
Keep censoring my posts wimps. This is what leftwing politics has come to: censoring people's posts who disagree with separatism hahahahha
How, exactly, can a fox be "watery"?
An embarassing digestive problem, perhaps?
Seriously dude, there are two problems with what you just posted:
1)a lot of separatists/sovereigntists in Quebec(the majority, I truly believe)are committed antiracists and anti-xenophobes. Your implication that this kind of thing is something only separtists/sovereigntists/let's just say it, francophone Quebecers are capable of doing is a slander on an entier people and you owe the progressive majority of francophones an apology for it.
2)It was an anglophone federalist government in Canada that said of the idea of postwar Jewish survivors of Hitler moving to Canada "one would be too many". No separatist or sovereigntist has ever said or ever will say anything that evil.
Look, this is simple. There is no "debate" in Québec over reasonable accommodation or identity politics or anything of the like. When Mario Dumont and the MSM tried to start one almost three years ago, I and others on babble pointed out that these were a handful of real or manufactured "incidents" (the spa, the sugar shack, Hérouxville...) that no one cared about. Result? The ADQ got destroyed, the Bouchard-Taylor Commission issued its report, and the "issue" was forgotten. Surely the PQ understands this. If they don't, and if they ever follow the path of racism or similar xenophobia, they will be deservedly destroyed as well. But so far, that exaggeration only exists in the minds of Bouchard and the (most non-Québec) MSM.
If this debate is so "non-existent" in Quebec why is Pauline Marois sqawking about banning burqas in public places and denouncing the Charest government for letting some Jewish schools have classes on Sundays? Has she no better issues to obsess over??
Pauline Marois is pushing her party's version of secularism - not just about burqas and Jewish schools. Read what I just wrote. No one cares. That's why Dumont and the MSM had to manufacture scandals. And then, the whole thing went away. Marois is desperate to find some niche, so she may be pushing secularism too far. If she does, it will be her undoing, as it was for Dumont. But these "debates" come from the "top", not from concerns that express themselves at the level of communities.