Some Much Deserved Mockery

Enjoy:

Resisting The Fashion Fascists

If his shrill demagoguery is any indication, I suppose Herr Harper and his regime can be considered to be at war with Islam; the latter's offences range from embracing jihadism to being a culture that, according to our self-appointed fascist fashionista, is 'anti-women.'

In that war, Zunera Ishaq is what we might consider a resistance fighter. You will recall that the Pakistani woman and devout Sunni Muslim who is seeking Canadian citizenship, while willing to remove her niqab to an official before taking the citizenship test, wanted to remain veiled for the swearing-in ceremony. A federal judge overturned the ban on her veil, but the Harper regime is appealing the decision, while at the same time eagerly fanning the flames of intolerance to better reach his base.

In today's Star, Zunera Ishaq offers her perspective on the issue:

I am Zunera Ishaq. I am a mother. I am university educated. I believe that the environment needs saving and I try to do my part by joining campaigns to plant trees. Chasing my boys in the snow is one of the things I love most about winter. I believe we should strive to give back to others, and for me that means volunteering: at women’s shelters, for political candidates or at schools.

I also wear a niqab. And according to my prime minister, that is all you need to know about me to know that I am oppressed.

It’s precisely because I won’t listen to how other people want me to live my life that I wear a niqab. Some of my own family members have asked me to remove it. I have told them that I prefer to think for myself.

Ishaq, who has removed her niqab on every occasion that required facial identification (airport security, driver's licence, etc.) offers a spirited defense of her decision:

I will not take my niqab off at that same ceremony for the sole reason that someone else doesn’t like it, even if that person happens to be Stephen Harper.

I am not looking for Mr. Harper to approve my life choices or dress. I am certainly not looking for him to speak on my behalf and “save” me from oppression, without even ever having bothered to reach out to me and speak with me.

Had Harper asked why she wears the niqab, he might have learned a few things that would have challenged his rigid intolerance:

I would have told him that it was a decision I took very seriously after I had looked into the matter thoroughly. I would tell him that aside from the religious aspect, I like how it makes me feel: like people have to look beyond what I look like to get to know me. That I don’t have to worry about my physical appearance and can concentrate on my inner self. That it empowers me in this regard.

In her article, Zunera Ishaq emerges as a thoughtful and independent thinker. As we know, those qualities, while normally real assets, are seen as most unwelcome obstacles in Harperland.

Has Mr. Harper's Niqab's Misdirection Worked?

You decide.


H/t Michael Nabert

Meanwhile, Bruce Anderson wonders about the implications for our democracy in Mr. Harper's pontifications on what women should and should not wear.

Stephen Harper says covering your face is concealing, not expressing, a “Canadian” identity. He didn’t argue that it was a security threat. He was saying that if this is how you express your personal values, it’s not Canadian enough for his tastes.

Initially his comments were focused on the citizenship ceremony. But he has since wandered further, hazardously afield.

The problem, he says, is that the practice of wearing a niqab is rooted in a culture that is “anti-women.” He appeared to be generalizing about the Muslim faith. His reference was not specific to the Taliban or the Islamic State, or any radical faction.

His point was that those who cover their faces are not making a choice of their own free will – but are victims of subjugation.

You don’t have to be a Muslim to wonder if this line of commentary from a Prime Minister is a healthy development in our democracy.

I Start To Worry

This is, I believe, the second time in recent weeks that I have agreed with Rex Murphy. You see my problem.

About The "Harper Gestapo Act" And Other Prime Ministerial Fear Mongering

I would feel much more hopeful about October's election if I believed this kind of critical thinking were common among our fellow citizens:

Re: Tory rhetoric defies belief, Editorial March 12
Re: Terror a diversionary tactic, Letter March 12

As a Canadian-born Jew I am offended at Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney’s use of the Holocaust to justify his government’s draconian and vicious terror legislation, Bill C-51.
The roots of the Holocaust are to be found in the German government’s manipulation of hatred and fear of an ethic and religious minority that was seen by the government as a threat to the nation’s economic well-being and to the cultural and ethical values of the German people.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government are using words — not only in the media, but in the very laws of Canada — to attack members of a religious minority.
The government’s rhetoric for writing and then defending Bill C-51 by its constant referral to jihadists and now to the Holocaust reeks of the crematoriums and echoes of jackboots smashing a human face.

Howard Tessler, Toronto

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney has it backwards. The Holocaust was started by casting dispersions on an ethnic minority and blaming them for all the problems in the country and if only they were pure like us we wouldn’t have to rid the country of them; and eventually the world. The propaganda of hate came first and then the Holocaust.

Allan McPherson, Newmarket

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney is right in his assertion that the Holocaust began with words. However, it began with the Nazi government’s words, with a propaganda campaign of lies about “the threat from within” to the German nation from Jews and other minorities.

Once it had unleashed a torrent of words to divide a fearful nation, it passed legislation that day by day stripped German citizens of basic freedoms, including the right to free speech and equal protection under the law.

When our government resorts to this kind of false analogy in order to promote its proposed security legislation, we have reason to question not only the legislation itself, but also the very assumptions on which these proposals are based.

Let no Canadian be misled by the old bromide: “It can’t happen here.”

Rabbi Arthur Bielfeld, Toronto

I think that it should be called the “Harper Gestapo Act,” because that’s what it simply is.

G. Burns, Oshawa

Harper To Muslims: Prove You Are With Us

That certainly is the implication given the tone that Diane Ablonczy takes with National Council of Canadian Muslims executive director Ihsaan Gardee during hearings on Bill C-51. As you will see, however, the latter eloquently and quite effectively denounces the spirit of McCarthyism behind Ablonczy's question:

Meanwhile, On the Back Nine

When this happens, do you still have to yell "Fore'?