Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:07 on 2019-01-29 Permalink Reply  

• Steve Q 09:38 on 2019-01-29 Permalink

  Funny how Patriquin is doesn’t seem offended by Israel’s preference for Jewish people ?

• Kate 09:52 on 2019-01-29 Permalink

  Patriquin doesn’t mention Israel in that piece.

  He’s pointing out the shift from linguistic to ethnic preference, which I noted briefly a few days ago here on the blog. He’s saying it wasn’t unreasonable for Quebec to give preference to people from e.g. Algeria and Haiti who already knew French, but that choosing “Europeans” who may not know a word of French, but have white skin, is a different thing entirely.

• Jack 12:19 on 2019-01-29 Permalink

  The picture of Legault with Dany Lafferiere makes it even more appalling.

• qatzelok 14:08 on 2019-01-29 Permalink

  J Trudeau startes his term by making boycotting of Israel “condemnable.”

  But it’s also clear that imitating Israeli policy is off limits to non-Israelis.

  The level of subtle racism in our government is much more serious than what a bunch of hicks say at town halls in Sudbury or Ste Hyacinthe. Or a slip of the tongue of an inexperienced government spokesmodel.

• Hamza 14:33 on 2019-01-29 Permalink

  I was hoping for him to make the point in a more aggressive way but he surprisingly goes really easy on Legault and the CAQ.

  Just in the last year or so we’ve had the SLĀV/Kanata thing, Gabriel Chaput, the First Nations hockey players in Quebec City and if you want to go back further, the Mosque Shooting.

  This is a systemic problem in Quebec and all you need to do is ask a PoC and they will recount to you their experiences off the top of their head.

  Oh, and I musn’t forget those perennial lads whom Rage Against the Machine summed up as ‘some of those who work forces/are the same that burn crosses’

• qatzelok 17:57 on 2019-01-29 Permalink

  People in small towns all over most of the world express similarly bewildered opinions of other cultures. What is really exceptionally racist (and important) is the hierarchy of races in the international arena – of all rich countries’ political leaders.

  Our government protects Israel and will attack Venezuela for the same reason: money, not race. But the distribution of money follows ethnic lines because of tribal loyalty, so this money-based politics is racist by the very definition of racist: ordered according to racial lines. And it’s extremely influential: it determines the way the world functions.

  Using media memes to prove a point on this topic is problematic because commercial media isn’t neutral at all and chooses which memes to run on loop. It also exists for money, which follows tribal lines. Media is, thus, also tribal and racist.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjrD3wachW0 (Michel Onfray on how the Gilets Jaunes are being framed inaccurately by commercial media)

• js 23:45 on 2019-01-29 Permalink

  Wasn’t this yahoo banned for promoting anti-semitic nonsense before? Why do you keep letting him back in? Does ranting about how Jews are control all governments, banks, and news media really advance understanding of local politics?

• david100 03:57 on 2019-01-30 Permalink

  I’m not sure what to think of qatzelok’s thoughts or the others.

  Overall, I think it’s pretty obvious that we should be dead against the hard conservative values of middle easterns, Asians, and people from here.

  Obviously, it’s not ideal that so many people in Quebec would prefer not to have non-white people around, but here I think it’s also not great to project “Canadian” multi-cultural values on a semi-autonomous political entity like Quebec that hasn’t ever adopted the Vancouver/Toronto ideology that Trudeau parachuted in here to take nationwide.

  I don’t have an opinion on any given creed, but it strikes me, just as a guy who gets really annoyed with have-every-answer Canadians coming to Quebec and imposing their views, that in the same way a lot of you types demand rights for, say Muslim immigrants to practice their religion without restrictions or interference, it should also be fairly normal to allow the Quebec majority to voice opinions about how crazy they think it is. And to impose limits to its influence in the political and social community.

  The Canadian idea that some positions voicing concern about change are off the table and just can’t be discussed because doing so violates some identitarian compact that you cooked up in Toronto? That’s just not a majority Quebecois position.

  I don’t know what turn we took where people wearing burkas are who we on the left are defending, I must have missed it, but I think the sensible position in this column is right: yeah, let’s not go nuts on this stuff but, also, let’s not pretend that we want it or think it’s normal or desirable to be a religious fundamentalist from the middle east. Like, wtf.

• david100 04:02 on 2019-01-30 Permalink

  And obviously it’s not a big problem. I think the idea a lot of people have is that if there were just a lot less tolerance, these people would come anyway, they’d just assimilate a lot fasted and more effectively.

• Hamza 06:01 on 2019-01-30 Permalink

  Racists don’t deserve tolerance. Trudeau senior gave us multiculturalism in the constitution, so I dont know where u get ‘Toronto values.’ Ppl who obsess about hijabs/niqabs reveal their own racism/sexism and ignorance of individual women’s rights to choose.

  Individual and particularly group/minority rights exist as protection against tyranny of the majority.

  The quip about ‘middle eastern’ (are not Israelis Middle Eastern?) and ‘Asians’ (oh brother) is 18th century in its ignorance.

  Define ‘effective assimilation.’ Does it mean look and dress European? Kill your cultural roots and practises? Eat bacon and swallow Timbits?

• Ephraim 09:33 on 2019-01-30 Permalink

  If seperatism wasn’t already dead after seeing the mess of Brexit, the fact that it’s racist has certainly loss them every vote of every immigrant forever.

• Hamza 13:16 on 2019-01-30 Permalink

  @Ephraim

  Trust me when I say that mask slipped with Parizeau’s concession speech and nobody ‘ethnic’ who was around then will forget it

• Chris 22:35 on 2019-01-30 Permalink

  Hamza said “Ppl who obsess about hijabs/niqabs reveal their own racism/sexism and ignorance of individual women’s rights to choose”

  I suspect a reason some people “obsess” about hijabs/niqabs is because they are legally mandated in several places. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I know of no country on Earth where wearing a crucifix or kippah is required. So yeah, how about the woman’s right to choose? Iran and Saudi total ~100m people, say 50m women. That’s almost 2 whole Canadas of women *without* the right to choose. (No doubt a fair chunk would chose to wear it anyway, but they are not given the choice.) Strangely, this forcing applies only to women, and not men. So yeah, I agree sexism is at play. But racism? We’ve got brown people forcing hijab, and white people wanting to forbid hijab. In fact, we’ve also got brown people forbidding hijab, example Turkey. Seems forcing women transcends race. Almost as if assholes come in every colour.

  Forcing hijabs is wrong. Forbidding hijabs is wrong. I can understand that some in solidarity with the former group think the latter policy is warranted, but beyond being illiberal, I think it’s a tactical mistake too, as that which is banned is often coveted.

• Hamza 07:11 on 2019-01-31 Permalink

  Saudi and Iran’s regimes are terrible yes. Last I checked, there aren’t many Christian or Jewish theocracies left so it doesn’t make sense to compare. The fact that men (white) want to take away the right to wear Islamic dress in Western countries is hypocrisy. Kippahs and crucifixes are not nearly as important to those religions as the Islamic commandments of modesty, and btw modesty in dress is mandated for men as well.

  Anyway my point was that if these supposed defenders of women’s rights actually gave a damn, they would talk about domestic violence, sexual assault, inequality of employment/pay, voting rights, reproductive rights, maternity leave, media and political representation, FGM, and a dozen other more pressing and relevant issues .

  As it stands, this is only about cultural hegemony and forced ‘assimilation’

• Chris 10:28 on 2019-01-31 Permalink

  “there aren’t many Christian or Jewish theocracies left so it doesn’t make sense to compare” -> There’s only Vatican City and Mount Athos. Total population about 3000. They are basically all there by choice.

  “modesty in dress is mandated for men as well” -> The standard of ‘modesty’ is not the same for men vs women, and you know it. It’s a sexist standard.

  “these supposed defenders of women’s rights” -> who are you referring to exactly? Anyway, there are plenty of us that talk about all those issues you listed, *without omitting* religious stuff too.

  “more pressing and relevant issues” -> there are countless pressing and relevant problems on this Earth. No one can tackle all of them. There’s nothing wrong with picking a subset of issues and tackling them. Some people focus on environment, some on feminism, some on nuclear proliferation, and yes some on hijab. You might find it more pressing were it forced on you.

  If the topic of Islam and feminism interests you, check out some of the exmna videos, ex: youtube.com/watch?v=QToH2x8njJM

  Anyway, my overall point is to push back against the idea that being anti-hijab is _automatically_ racist. Of course some anti-hijab people are also racist! But the one does not require the other. Hijab used to be illegal in Iran. Were they racist against themselves? Today Iranian women are being arrested for taking off their hijab, are they racist against themselves?

• dhomas 20:58 on 2019-01-31 Permalink

  I’ve been to Iran. The standard of modesty is pretty similar for men and women. I was advised to avoid shorts and wear long sleeves, but no tie. The only difference for women is the hijab, and even then it was pretty loose. Most women I saw in Tehran had a simple veil covering the back of the heads (basically starting around the same place a Jewish man would wear a kippah). I could tell you stories of all the propaganda we are fed her about Iran…
  I can’t speak about Saudi Arabia, though.

• Chris 22:18 on 2019-01-31 Permalink

  dhomas, if the standard is similar towards men and women, perhaps you could cite something analogous to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_of_Enghelab_Street where men are arrested for wearing shorts?

• dhomas 12:08 on 2019-02-01 Permalink

  When I was there, men definitely could be arrested for “unacceptable” clothing. We don’t hear much about it because the situation is worse for women.
  This article mentions that the police were supposed to stop arresting people for breaking dress code: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/irairan-police-tehran-women-rights-islamic-dress-code-arrests-police-hijab-hasan-rouhani-reform-a8132726.html
  It also mentions that “men can also be stopped by the police if they are seen wearing shorts or going shirtless”. I think this happens less often, but since I didn’t see a single person, man or woman, stopped by police for indecent clothing, I can’t confirm first-hand.

• Chris 15:42 on 2019-02-01 Permalink

  dhomas, men in Canada can be arrested for “unacceptable” clothing too (Criminal Code sections 173 & 174). But the same rules apply to women, topfreedom included (though only recently).

  In Iran, neither the rules nor enforcement are the same between the sexes. The rules for men are a *subset* of the rules for women. No shorts for men, but no shorts for women either. Head covering for women, but *no* such rule for men. Enforcement likewise is biased against women. It’s textbook sexism.

  Sure we are fed propaganda about Iran, but this isn’t an instance of it.

• Chris 15:29 on 2019-02-02 Permalink

  And very timely: youtube.com/watch?v=vVpZ0FZc8SY