Canada’s largest Muslim organisation is outraged over a bill introduced by the Quebec government that would ban headscarves for school support staff and students.
“In Quebec, we made the decision that state and the religion are separate,” said Education Minister Bernard Drainville, CBC News reported. “And today, we say the public schools are separate from religion.”
But the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), who are challenging in the Supreme Court the original bill that forbids religious symbols being worn by teachers, say the new bill is another infringement on their rights and unfairly targets hijab-wearing Muslims.
“This renewed attack on the fundamental rights of our community is just one of several recent actions taken by this historically unpopular government to bolster their poll numbers by attacking the rights of Muslim Canadians,” the NCCM said in a social media post.
I think this is wrong. I get that the hijab is complicated ethically, as it’s expected of Muslim women. Wether or not it’s consensual is debatable, sure.
I’ve also spoken to Muslim women who claim to be wearing it voluntarily, because it makes them feel less objectified and more comfortable in their own skin. It’s also a connection to their cultural and religious background, which is important. As a non-Muslim, I don’t really think I’m qualified to argue. I don’t think it should be the provincial government’s decision either. At the end of the day, it’s a piece of cloth… What does it really hurt?
When I lived in Quebec, I saw plenty of Christian religious symbols. Will removing those be enforced as well?
apparently, yes. crosses, anyways:
I’m happy that Quebec has finally decided to include Christian symbols in these laws (they started targeting Muslim women around 2012/2013 but didn’t end up passing any laws banning religious symbols until Bill 62 in 2017), but I don’t believe that they will be enforced equally. Also, a cross is easily hidden whereas a head or face covering is not.
Surely any hidden symbol is that much harder to justify banning in the first place. It’s pretty hard to attribute to that a negative effect on others who can’t even see it.
Surely a government that wants to respect human rights including its own charter of human rights and freedoms would not try to justify the banning of certain types of apparel at all. It’s pretty hard to attribute to that a negative effect on others who can see it.
I pretty much agree, but at least in the visible case I can construct scenarios where some marginal harm is possible. For example, displays that suggest biases so strong they cannot even be temporarily set aside while exercising authority would undermine the integrity of institutions granting that authority.
If a person who is wearing a hijab is not breaking any other laws, I don’t believe that it’s right to ban wearing a hijab. To construct a situation that makes this okay with nothing to suggest that there is actually a real threat here is really strange.
If you want to ban terrorism or defiance of authority from Muslims, those things are already illegal.
I’m not in Quebec and I don’t know what effects religious symbols are actually having. Someone who claimed to be from Quebec described a couple examples to me that sounded pretty reasonable - things like someone from one religion being condemned and sentenced/fined by a judge wearing overt symbols of an opposing religion. Until I have concrete data either validating or discrediting the impact or actual occurrence of such scenarios, I’m inclined to at least consider them.
All examples were closely tied to religious influence on top of a substantial power imbalance and wouldn’t really translate beyond that situation. I don’t see it as being particularly different from trying to dictate who someone can date or engage in sexual activity. That’s insane out of context - then add the context of a pre-existing boss-employee relationship.
I saw that, but I’m very skeptical it will be enforced with the same frequency as hijabs. In my experience, Quebec is obsessed with promoting it’s own culture. Christianity is a big part of French Canadian culture, so I expect it will get a pass. It’s very much a “rules for thee, not for me” sort of place.
If I’m wrong and it’s enforced equally for everyone, that’s better. I still don’t think the government has any business making laws around peaceful religious expression, however.
Maybe many still consider themselves Christians if you ask them for a title as they still believe in a god but not really the religion. That’s my 40 years of experience anyway. For a couple decades I don’t know of a single person who goes to church or prey. It’s definitely not a big part of the culture.
When the CAQ first proposed to ban religious symbols in government years ago, they first said the cross would stay as it is “historical”. Everyone got upset at how hypocritical this was and they had to fold. Quebecois didn’t like that at all.
All that said, I think they are going too far again with their last idea. Anyway they are not so popular right now and there is a controversy about the SAAQLIC project, they are just trying to change the narrative.
The main culture in Quebec since the 1960 is to ridicule Christianity and other religions.
Christianity is still by far the predominant religion in Quebec. There are more Christians in Quebec than people who identify as non-religious.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810035301
… and Christianity is the most criticized : consider only swear words are all ridiculed christian terms 🤣 !
I think this is more indicative of the historical influence of Christianity over French Canadian affairs than it is proof of modern Quebec’s perception of world religions…
Yes indeed Quebec is really protective of its culture which include bashing Christian religion and, by extension, other religions … but not as strongly 🤣.
Big ? 🤣 No, small and smaller everyday. Churches go bankrupt and get converted to whatever else …
The social implications of veiling are an interesting and complex topic. Unfortunately, public discourse tends to be pretty bad at handling complex topics. But there are occasional moments of lucidity. To wit:
Sometime around 2015 or so we had a big political debate in Germany. Some politicians were floating the idea of a “burqa ban” (= a flat ban on all forms of Islamic face veiling). For a while it was seriously debated but it ultimately failed as most Germans considered it to violate freedom of religion.
The media were actually helpful – at least the publicly funded ones were. One particularly interesting report I saw was when a female reporter put on full veils (and correctly identified what she was wearing as a niqab, not a burqa) and went out in public. First with a hidden camera to see how she was treated, then with a camera team to get vox pops.
Opinions were actually fairly divided even among Muslims. One male Muslim argued that face veils always are inherently oppressive and have no place in society. A young woman (who was wearing nothing indicating her religion) expressed admiration for those who fully veil and hoped that one day she’d be able to as well. An old woman wearing a headscarf who was carrying groceries said that she did wear the niqab “but not right now; I have things to do”.
That diversity of views has stuck with me, especially that last statement. I never expected someone who observes such full veiling to be so pragmatic about it. (Yes, that does go against the reasons for wearing them in the first place but everybody tailors their religion to themself.) If wearing any kind of veils can be something you can just decide not to do, then it becomes an expression of agency, not one of lack thereof. I respect that.
Of course it’s not respectable when someone is forced to wear a headscarf/a niqab/whatever. But a ban isn’t going to fix that; people who oppress their wives aren’t going to stop doing so. If they feel that nobody outside the house is allowed to see their wife’s face then the wife will simply no longer be allowed to leave the house.
Ultimately, in my opinion, people should be allowed to wear any religious garment they want, provided it’s their own desire to do so and there’s no overriding reason to disallow it. (E.g., no matter how religious you are, you do not wear a kaftan or a cross necklace or anything else that dangles while operating industrial machinery.) Anything else is useless at best.