According to my eldest daughter, I am a racist and a bigot.
I made the mistake of wading into the current niqab debate with her. No big deal my daughter and I disagree on many issues, being that she is at the complete opposite end of the political spectrum to where I am.
I think this is the first time I have agreed with a majority of people in Quebec.
I will endeavor to make my case by taking you back to 1979 Iran.
When the Shah was ruling Iran it was a secular Muslim state. After the fall of the Shah, one of the first orders of business by the triumphant Islamic Council, was to insist that all women veil themselves. The minimum requirement was that women must wear the niqab, which is the subject of one conversation in this current federal election. It is a full facial covering for woman in which only the eyes are showing. The ruling mullahs have since relaxed things a tad and woman are now allowed to wear the hijab which loosely covers the hair. Iran was the first Muslim fundamentalist country to make this a requirement of women and it is actually where veiling of woman in public originated. Nowhere in the Koran is there a direct requirement for woman to veil themselves. It only calls for men and women to dress modestly.
My next case in point is Afghanistan. After the Mujahideen forces unceremoniously kicked out the occupying Soviet army in 1989, the country subsequently spiraled into chaos, due to the vacuum that was left behind.
From that chaos emerged the Taliban in 1996.
The following is a quote I found online from Human Rights Watch from that period of time:
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (The Taliban) has methodically and violently forced half of its population (women) into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them from doing many normal everyday activities on pain of physical punishment”.
Part of that “house arrest” included the insistence by the Taliban for woman to wear a burka at all times in public. The burka is basically a body-bag with a mesh for the poor woman to see out of.
One thing that became very apparent to me when watching the news reports regarding this latest ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, to allow Zunera Ishaq to wear a niqab at a citizenship ceremony. Is that whenever she was being interviewed, her husband was always hovering nearby, I very much doubt that he would have allowed her to be interviewed if he were not present. The wearing of a veil is not a human right, it is the complete opposite. It is a nasty little patriarchal part of the Muslim religion practiced by a small portion of Muslim men used to subjugate woman and keep them hidden from the leering eyes of other men, I find that quite disturbing.
In more secular Muslim countries the wearing of the hijab or the burka is actually forbidden in some public areas for security reasons. Those countries seem to have figured this out so why can’t the Supreme Court of Canada? I have read various polls of Muslim woman and a large portion (around 67%) seem to have no problem unveiling themselves in many situations. As Harper said the only people that are making this an election issue are the Liberals and the NDP with their clumsy efforts to allow this “religious freedom”.
VIEW FROM A NOBODY 
I thought your post was serious for a moment. And then I got to the last line:
“As Harper said the only people that are making this an election issue are the Liberals and the NDP….”
That’s hilarious! Best laugh all day. Keep up the good work.
LikeLike
Larry I already let you post one 500 word rant that really had nothing to do with the subject matter at hand, which ended up being you just venting about Harper, I’m not allowing another. If you want to drone on incessantly about your political views go and start your own blog.
LikeLike
All right here we go all this Burka face covering is nothing more than Peripheral bull shit.
The conservative government of Steve Harper must go.
Our dollar is shit and our economy is terrible. There’s nothing to preserve. We’re the only G7 country in a recession and the IMF just downgraded our growth outlook yesterday.
Although we did have a ‘balanced budget’ after they sold our GM shares (at a loss of 3.5 billion dollars. It also removed the incentive for them to continue manufacturing in Canada, which lead to a cut of 1000 jobs in Oshawa alone within 3 weeks of the sale), cut 2 billion dollars from our contingency fund, stole 1.8 billion dollars from EI (which we all pay into), and took 900 million dollars from sick leave benefits for public service employees.
All of our money and resources were put into the oil industry. In addition to the negative environmental impact and the further strain on our relationship with many First Nations communities, that turned out to be a terrible financial decision as oil prices continue to drop. A few years ago, I knew at least a dozen men working on oil rigs. Now I don’t know any, because they’ve all either been laid off, or injured on the job.
Then there are the jobs lost from the massive cuts to healthcare and the arts. For the first time in 2 decades, the number of nurses working in Canada declined. My doctor is paying out of pocket for his patients to have pap tests, because the government no longer covers the costs, and he doesn’t want women to put off having them. And I don’t know a single person who works in arts or the media in Canada who hasn’t at the very least seen a pay cut while their coworkers were laid off. A lot of companies just fired all of their employees then hired them back as freelancers at much lower rates and without benefits. As a disabled person who works in the arts, the cuts to both sectors has been nothing short of devastating.
There’s also a promised 12 billion dollar increase on military spending (serious question: why?) while making massive cuts to Veterans Affairs. They cut lifetime pensions for injured veterans, shut down 9 offices (resulting in 89 jobs lost, leaving 8 employees to handle 17 000 veterans) and cut over 900 jobs from Veterans Affairs (mostly from the disability awards branch). Despite the massive increase in veterans in need of mental health treatment, there’s an average of an 8 month wait for veterans seeking mental help, and a 24% refusal rate for veterans seeking mental health help through their disability benefits. While this was happening, the government gave $500 000 in bonuses to management for cutting budgets (which they did really well, apparently, since they returned 1.13 billion dollars allocated for veterans services to the general revenue). The Conservative government then spent another $750 000 dragging out a class action lawsuit by veterans trying to get their pensions back.
Then there are even more court costs from the senate scandal, in which everyone involved in both the acts and the cover-up, with the exception of Mac Harb, was appointed by Harper. The court costs are on top of the cost of the RCMP investigation and the million dollars of fraudulent expenses.
Speaking of immeasurably stupid court costs: we’ve yet to hear how much we’ve spent trying to prevent one solitary woman from wearing a niqab during her citizenship ceremony, despite the fact that she was only the second woman in history to even request it. Those costs will continue to rise, by the way, because they’ve stated that they plan to appeal and take it to the supreme court.
In keeping with the string of really, really awful money decisions, we just engaged in a secret arms trade deal (literally, keeping it a secret was a part of the deal) with Saudi Arabia, a country that is schedule to crucify one 17 year old and behead another for taking part in a protest. They also just threatened all of their citizens with execution if they post anything negative about the government on the internet. We sold that country military equipment and promised to keep it a secret. That’s goddamn batshit cowsuit crazy, and gives a lot of insight into why our government continues to refuse to sign the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty (we’re the only NATO country not to do so, despite pressure from all of our allies). Had we signed the treaty, we would have had to report the deal to the UN, at which point it would have been rejected because of the aforementioned human rights violations.
And all of that is without getting into issues like missing and murdered Indigenous women, cuts to Canada Post, bill C-51, the complete inaction re: Syrian refugees, the lack of safe drinking water on reserves, the terrifying food deserts in Canada’s North, the inaction on the Truth and Reconciliation report, our rapidly deteriorating international reputation, the admitted lip service to environmental concerns so Europe won’t call us out about the oil industry, the mass deportation of Roma refugees, the cuts to healthcare for the non-Roma refugees, the cuts to international aid, the cuts to CBC, the cuts to women’s health funding, the blatant Islamophobia, the baldfaced lying about marijuana, and Harper’s refusal to not have Lego hair.
We’re currently living in the worst possible Bush-era SNL sketch. We’re past the point of parody. We’re doing everything we’ve historically made fun of Americans for doing, only somehow worse because of our unearned, smug self-righteousness from decades of self-identifying as the world’s peacekeepers. It’s gross. It’s so gross.
LikeLike
I also agree, thanks for taking the time…
LikeLike
Feel better now you got that off your chest Larry? You make me laugh you already told me you hate Smiling Tom and Shiny Pony as much as you hate Harper, so who’s left for you to vote for Liz the Lush?
LikeLike
Agree . Lee
LikeLike
I totally agree with your points on this issue. I found exactly the same information in doing my research, and have had numerous conversations on the matter with many of my friends. I find it difficult to understand how some of our political leaders and the Supreme Court of Canada can continue to spout off that this is about religious freedom. The Niqab and the Burka have nothing to do with religion nor freedom.
On a humorous aside, WordPress inserts ads after your article, and it was funny that the ad that came up this time was one for Tom Mulcair 🙂 It certainly wasn’t because I have spent any time looking at the NDP site.
LikeLike
Nobody:
First, welcome back: where’ve you been? There have been local issues in your absence that would have been illuminated by your wisdom!
Second: don’t worry about your daughter: she’s not wrong, and in any event 10 years from now, she’ll be on your side of the political spectrum, (unless she falls for a radical leftie; in which case all bets are off!)
Third: I for one don’t care about the niqab in Citizenship ceremonies. But I wouldn’t want my grandkids in a JK class where they can’t see the teacher’s face; and I definitely don’t think any participant in a court case, whether witness, defendant, judge, or jury member, should have their face hidden.
Remember the fuss about Sikhs wearing turbans in the military or RCMP? I think we’ve got over that.
Now some local stuff:
Have you noticed that the Shipyards area is being cleaned up? Only been 5 years! And it isn’t because the Town pushed them—it’s self serving on the part of the developer–they want to restart the sales process, and who’d buy a property surrounded by a midden?
Also the Hurontario/Hume corner is getting fixed as well. Also NOT at the Town’s direction.
I firmly believe that Town building/planning/ property standards departments have been grossly negligent, if not in fact corrupt, with the prolonged laxity on these issues.
So get back on the ball, dealing with local issues!!
LikeLike