That’s a weird commission in Quebec, the one on hate, whoops, I mean “reasonable accommodation.” Premier Jean Charest set it up after some “incidents”: frosted glass on the windows at the YMCA so Orthodox Jews wouldn’t see the spandex; something about the cost impact on shoppers of kosher food; a town council that passed bylaws disallowing death by stoning.

There’s always something impressive in the sight of ordinary people trooping to mikes to speak on matters of public concern, as they’ve done during months of hearings, along with the usual briefs by organizations and focus groups held for the commissioners in more private settings.

The commissioners, that’s what I find disorienting, one French and one English, both profs and you’d know it in a second, even without nameplates. Gérard Bouchard wrote La culture québécoise est-elle en crise? Charles Taylor, a philosopher, wrote Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. The two (academic) amigos.

They sit at the front of a room in Rimouski, Sherbrooke or Montreal, behind tables, taking notes, with the class, or citizenry, in rows before them, raising hands for a chance to present. They may intervene, to ask a skeptical question along the lines of, Er, madam, how do you know every Muslim is out to kill you? Sometimes, they are sterner and say a comment is “unacceptable” or anti-Semitic or “you don’t deserve to be heard”; or the gloves come off, to a critic of Canadian multiculturalism: “I don’t think you’ve ever read the original texts of Canadian multiculturalism policy.”

They are the experts, parents, judges. They praise and they blame. “We believe,” they write, that the “recent intercultural friction … affords us an opportunity to redefine and strengthen the ties that bring us together.” The procedure unfolds beneath their defining, sanitizing, rectifying gaze. They sweep the room like searchlights. For sure, they will “solve” this “problem,” i.e. “the management of diversity, especially religious diversity.” The trick, they say, is to “grant them” — you know, them — “an accommodation” so they “submit to the lifestyle that is our own and … more easily assimilate our fundamental values.” Wow, everything in that is wrong or, at least, paternalistic: grant accommodation, assimilation, our values.

The whole thing oozes, from my seat in front of the TV, an irritating distrust of normal, unmanaged human process; a hysterical reaction hiding under the excessive calm of the profs that conceals a sense of panic — or there wouldn’t be an inquiry — that all hell may be breaking loose, what with the frosted glass, kosher food and bylaws against stoning. We’re inches from those riots in France and then — only God knows.

My own view is that hate is normal, it’s overrated as a cause of conflict, it’s not going away and, if people can’t live with it, rather than scream and hold hearings that denormalize it, then there’s no hope for survival. Let it fester, let it erupt; if things get violent or illegal, you have laws to deal with that. It’s amazing that people don’t spend more time snarling at others as they walk about upright, wearing clothes and cooking food.

If you’re going to have a globalized society, mixing people who are different, you’ll have more conflict as they get used to it. There are lots of anti-hate counterforces. Take the Mideast. I could retire if I had a quarter for every effort to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to understand and accept each other as human. Often enough they do, but it doesn’t end the conflict because hate and misunderstanding aren’t at the bottom of it, even if those function to perpetuate the strife. Canada, by all accounts, has done really well, with all the tensions that are there.

But if you think hate is the problem, or just want to deal with it because it poisons lives, I don’t think the way to do that is by talking down, even from a little elevated dais at the front of a pseudo-classroom.

rick_salutin_small_24_1_1_1_1_0

Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.