German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, claimed recently in a bizarre twist of logic that "multiculturalism" did not work in Germany. Really? When exactly did Germany have a commitment to "multiculturalism"? Does she really believe that their labour market strategy of getting cheap labour from Turkey without offering those workers a status, let alone equality, in Germany is multiculturalism?
France, another mythical bastion of "multiculturalism," recently passed a law to impinge on such personal freedoms like the right to choose what one wears, and then paraded it as the triumph of multiculturalism and secularism? So now the hegemony of state defined secularism that puts limits on fundamental rights of only some of the people in a multicultural society like France is supposed to be the promise of the republic? Does any one see the blatant and perverse contradiction of this logic?
Oh my! Will Kymlicka's unshakeable faith in multiculturalism as a core principle of Western liberalism and therefore one that cannot be separated from it, must seem a little dodgy right about now. It seems Western liberalism is not as liberal as he thinks when the first thing that gets dispensed with is multiculturalism in spite of the fact that it is a demographic reality. And I have not even mentioned Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway yet. This essentially means to Western liberalism, some people are more equal than others -- welcome to Animal Farm!
At a time of such inane convulsions of logic, it is gratifying that in Canada we have a more nuanced and profound understanding of our "multiculturalism." The recent Ontario Court of Appeal ruling on the issue of a Muslim woman seeking the right to wear a Niqab while testifying at the trial of two male relatives accused of sexually assaulting her is a creditable example of balancing multiple rights in a society that is diverse. The decision stated: the woman cannot be forced to take off her Niqab, that she should be allowed to explain the connection between her religious beliefs and the wearing of the Niqab and that the request to have witnesses show their face must be considered on a case-by-case basis because the subject does not lend itself to any "bright line" rule.
Hence, by being flexible and making any decision "context specific," the three Justices showed the possibility of multiculturalism in practice and reinforced the principle of "fairness" which ought to define our values in the first place. Essentially the ruling puts the onus on both parties. It says to the person seeking religious accommodation:
(a) show that this accommodation is integral to your faith;
(b) show that the accommodation is significant and necessary to you exercising that right. But it also says to the legal system: (a) balance multiple rights that are at play in any trial situation -- right of accommodation vs right of defense; (b) depending on the context, establish which one is more significant than the other. Sounds like a very sophisticated and fair resolution to a very complex issue -- multicultural reasoning at its best!
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Of course, the issue got played out in the mainstream media and amongst self-flagellating Muslims as OMG the "barbarians are at the gate." But we need to ask: why does one Muslim woman seeking accommodation in one aspect of her case suddenly gets construed as threatening the very fundamentals of Western civilization? Are they really that weak? Furthermore, why are we not saluting the woman for striking a blow for Canadian feminism? A Niqab wearing Muslim woman has had the guts to take two male members of her family to Canadian courts for sexually assaulting her and we can find no cause to celebrate her Canadian-ness?
It is a good thing that she appealed to the Court of law and not the court of public bashing. At least there both the raising of the issue and its resolution provides many more positive lessons for Canadian society and our multiculturalism.
This is not just a Muslim issue. The reason Women's Legal Education and Action Fund and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association supported the Woman's (known as N. S.) request, is because multiple other issues are raised in this case.
(1) It speaks to an age-old issue of women's vulnerability in any trial situation dealing with sexual assault, rape etc. where women are made to re-live the trauma and be violated in public in the interest of ‘fairness' to the accused (usually a male) while testifying. Hence, wearing a Niqab offers that safe space from which a woman can participate in the legal process without being re-victimized.
(2) There is precedent in our legal process where children and women have been allowed to give testimony from behind a screen precisely for the reasons mentioned above. In fact, even police and security officers have been allowed to use a screen in cases where they have to retain their anonymity.
(3) The right of the accused, the defense counsel and jury to see the face of the person testifying is based on the belief that one can gauge the veracity of a person's testimony by seeing their facial expressions. However, there is ample social science research debunking this theory and showing that there is no necessary connection between the two.
Canada is muddling through its own multiculturalism but it is clear we have nothing to learn from Europe. We have a long way to go build an equitable and justice society for all the diverse people who call this a home now and it must be done by reconciling our understanding of multiculturalism to the reality of our First Nations' struggles but we are a lot further than people give us credit.
Different cultures have radically different and non-negotiable mores regarding such things as gender relations and the role of religion in society. This is simply a fact, and not a question of 'culturalism,' but the admission that cultural systems have evolved completely incompatible ways of addressing day to day issues, like sexual relations. Since so much of Western societies' legal systems and unwritten social conventions are based on Judeo-Christian culture, conflicts are inevitable. The Aqsa Parvez tragedy is a stark example of the complete failiure of multiculturalism in Canada.
There has never been a functional DEMOCRATIC multicultural society. Two examples are the Former Yugoslavia and Lebanon. Under authoritarian governments, intercultural friction was ruthlessly suppressed. However, when the dictatorial rulers (Communist Party, French Empire) abdicated, the multiculti societies blew apart into their component ethnic groups. A functional democracy requires an ethnically-coherent nation state, with the vast majority of the population 'on the same page,' in terms of social customs. This is why the nation-state arose. And no democracy has ever had its people chose to allow their country's ethnic composition to change. Mass immigration, a policy foisted on the populations of Western countries by business lobbies, is generating rear and anger amongst the majority (European-Christian) populations of these countries. This is driving support for extreme-right movements.
With good reason, people scoff at those Germans who try to transform themselves into North American Natives. Yet multicultists somehow believe that an ethnic Turk, from a conservative Muslim background and speaking no German, can magically become 'German' by government fiat. As Turkish immigrants become evermore religiously-conservative, the incompatibility becomes more acute.
Regardless of multiculti dogma, Canada is a European-Christian country, with social values and mores informed by French and English, liberal Christian culture. This has serious consequences, in terms of immigration, in a number of areas. The Aqsa Parvez homocide was one example, where a young woman wanted to adopt the secular norms of her Canadian peers (no hijab, intersexual fraternization), against her anti-assimilationist parents' wishes. The niqab, in particular, blatantly illustrates the huge and insurmountable differences between Canadian and conservative Muslim cultures. And Syed Soharwardy's absurd Human Rights complaint over the Jyllands-Post Mohammed cartoons (Soharwardy initially asked the Calgary Police to arrest Ezra Levant under Shari'a law; the police politely informed him that this wasn't possible) clarified the failiure of Canadian multiculturalism, in the eyes of disgusted Canadians.
Much has been made of the election of Naheed Nenshi as Calgary's mayor, as bolstering the cause of multiculturalism. However, Nenshi is a member of the Ismaili community. The Ismailis (along with their tolerant and philo-Occidental leader, the Aga Khan) have long been integrated into the British Empire. The Ismailis are so thoroughly Anglicized and liberal in their religious and social outlook that they were, for all practical purposes, 'Canadians' before setting foot in Canada. An analog in the German-Turkish context might be the Alevi sect of Islam. However, the bulk of Islamic immigration into Canada and Germany consists of people following very conservative sects, like Salafism. Not only are these groups' values completely contrary to Western norms, they tend to dislike liberal Muslims.
And it's not just with Islamic immigrants that multiculturalism is proving to be a disaster in Canada. Post Deng Xiaoping Chinese immigrantion, much of it under the Immigrant Investor and Entrepreneur programs, is creating virtual ghettos in Canadian cities. You see this in Chinese-only signage and ATMs with Chinese (but not French) lanuage options. You encounter it daily, with second and third-generation Chinese-Canadian children who can't function in English, and medical and other professionals who have difficulty communicating with you in one of Canada's official languages. And you hear media reports of Chinese-Canadians who can't dial 9-1-1, or require the services of interpreters to tell them "fire--GET OUT!" Not to single out Chinese-Canadians, there was the case of Robert Dziekansi. Here was a man who had planned to come to Canada for EIGHT YEARS, yet it never occurred to him that he should learn one of his host country's languages. (By contrast, my Polish grandfather was able to function in English, before stepping off the boat.) Linguistic ghettoization is one of the other disasters of multiculturalism.
It's time for Canada, like Germany, to admit that multiculturalism has been nothing but a spectacular failiure. As the price of admission, immigrants should adopt the social norms and language[s] of their host country. The immigration intake should be reduced, to a level that promotes assimilation. And we have to be realistic in screening immigrants for admission, by rejecting those whose culture will inevitably clash with Canada's.
Thank you for this article and to my "liberal" friend with his very informative comment up here (informative in the sense that it sheds light on how much ignorance still exists in this country), how many aboriginal languages do you speak?