Reasonable

The debate on 'reasonable accomodation' in Quebec is breaking my heart. It seems to be bringing out all kinds of barely-suppressed racism and paranoia about Those Scary Muslims. It may perhaps be too easy to point the finger at Hérouxville and their "code of conduct" -- it's becoming increasingly clear that there are plenty of people (and not just in Quebec) who would rather newcomers just start speaking French/English, wearing jeans, and eating Mickey D's like the "rest of us".

I'm a child of the Trudeau era. I believe in multiculturalism, and that our country is strengthened, not weakened, by a variety of people with a variety of backgrounds. And if sometimes that means I have to see someone wearing an outfit that's aesthetically unpleasant to me, well, I deal with it. Whether it's a leather micro-mini or a hijab*. And if what someone chooses to eat doesn't appeal to me, well, I just eat my own dinner, and let them do their own thing. I mean, seriously:

Regardless of the shape of the animal or its hooves, regardless of the shape of the fish, be it covered by scales or a shell, we will enjoy eating its flesh if it is prepared properly and presented tastefully.

Is Hérouxville banning rebellious teenagers from taking up vegetarianism? (Probably)

And given that we have laws against killing and hurting people in general, it seems unnecessary to specifically ban stoning.

Every time I hear about this apparent problem with multiculturalism, I feel as though I'm mising something. What, exactly, is wrong with people speaking their own language, wearing their own clothes, eating their own food? I suppose the fear is that if people aren't assimiliated into the dominant culture, they'll suddenly turn into EVIL TERRORISTS or something. But it seems to me that the greater problem would be the people we're not accepting because they haven't assimilated "perfectly" (whatever that would mean).

When you tell someone they have to change, completely and utterly, in order to be accepted, they're just going to get stubborn and determined not to change AT ALL -- not even those things they were thinking of changing themselves. We'd get a lot further as a society if we just accepted people as they were and let exposure to the wider culture expose them to new ideas and ways of doing things. That way, each and every one of us could, with time, pick the things that work and discard the things that don't, without feeling like we're betraying our entire history and ancestry.

But I'm just a crazy idealist, right?

* not that a hijab is aesthetically unpleasant -- I've seen some truly beautiful ones. But you get the idea.

A mile in her shoes... or a month in her veil

Sian Reid teaches sociology at Carleton University here in Ottawa. She started teaching this semester fully veiled, wearing a niqab, hijab, and abaya. After three weeks, she went back to the clothes she ordinarily wears.

It sounds to me like a fascinating experiment. It's easy to talk about women who choose to wear hijab, or to go fully veiled, but it must be a very different experience to actually be a veiled woman. I'm not surprised to hear that she had some unpleasant experiences interacting with the world at large, although I am disappointed in my fellow Ottawa residents.

What's perhaps most interesting is that this is an article about an issue intimately associated with immigrants, with Muslim women, with "foreigners". And yet it's an article that could only be written about a white woman whose "milky skin" and "long red hair" are repeatedly pointed out in the article. This is an experience countless women live every day -- I would have loved for the journalist to have interviewed a few of them.

The article mentions that some of her students were concerned that the experiment might be seen as disrespectful to Muslim women. It doesn't strike me as particularly disrespectful -- but I'd love to know what several Muslim women thought.

It's a shame that this kind of "immigrant experience" can seemingly only be communicated to the rest of us through someone taking on a temporary identity that isn't hers.

Pre-Throne Speech Ramblings

So all of us here in government-town (aka Ottawa) are waiting with bated breath for the Speech from the Throne. The rest of the country is probably doing its collective best to ignore it entirely, "prime-time" or no. But for the political junkies of my acquaintance, this kind of thing is high-grade catnip. The predictions are flying fast and furious. What will Stephen Harper put in the speech to embarrass the Liberals? And will Stéphane Dion rise to the bait? Will there be an election?

Harper is probably the only person who really wants an election, and I'm not too sure about him. The opposition is in disarray, especially the Liberals (the only 'real' opposition in terms of parties with a chance to win the election). But what Harper really wants is a majority, and he hasn't got the poll numbers for that -- not yet. Of course, if he can force the opposition into letting him govern as if he had a majority, then he's got the best of both worlds.

And it's all up to Dion. I gotta say, I feel sorry for the guy. He's gotten nothing but criticism since he won the leadership, and he's being forced into an untenable position. Today's resignation of his Quebec lieutenant certainly doesn't help. If he brings the government down, he fears he'll end up losing seats. If he doesn't, he looks like he's licking Harper's boots, which can't be good for his long-term election prospects.

I confess, selfishly, that I want this government to fall. I want to see Harper's bluff called. But it probably wouldn't be a good strategic move on Dion's part, and I doubt an election would do progressive folks any good.

It's just that I don't think leaving Harper in power is going to be good for progressives, either. Or for the country. Certainly not in the short term and probably not in the long term.

For all the insistence that Canadians don't want an election,* they didn't want (or at least didn't elect) a Harper majority, either. And I can't shake the feeling that they would at least respect Dion and the Liberals for standing up for their principles instead of cringing and strategizing.

So come on, Stéphane! Courage! Once more unto the breach and all that.

* Probably true -- for a democratic country, we spend a lot of time hoping we won't have an election and then staying home when one happens. **
** Eligible voters of Ontario, I'm looking at you!

PSA for Ontario readers

Today is election and referendum day!

Don't forget to get out and vote. If you don't know where to go and vote, contact Elections Ontario.

Murder is murder

We tend, as a society (maybe as a species), to view crimes as particularly terrible when committed against certain kinds of people -- usually those we perceive as vulnerable* or (perhaps more to the point) 'innocent'.

For example, murder is pretty universally agreed to be a Bad Thing. Murdering a man is bad, but murdering a 'helpless' woman is worse. Murdering the elderly is worse yet, and murdering a child is beyond the pale.

These are emotional evaluations, of course. There's no cold, logical reason why some kinds of murder should seem worse than others** -- but then, the human species is not, typically, cold and logical.

So it's not really surprising that the murder of a pregnant woman should cause some strong emotional reactions. And one of the ways this emotion seems to express itself is through the call for charging the perpetrator with two murders -- the woman's and the "unborn baby's".

I understand the impulse, especially when it's late in the pregnancy, especially when it was a wanted pregnancy, especially on the part of the family (who are, after all, mourning not only the woman they love, but also the potential future family they'd been expecting and preparing to welcome). But this is an impulse that must absolutely not be codified into law.

The problem is, as soon as you create a crime called 'fetal murder', you open the door to all kinds of issues. As outlined in this National Post article:

"If we take the position that the fetus is a separate person at viability, then we open up all sorts of issues. All of a sudden, the woman is two separate persons," said Martha Shaffer, an associate law professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in family and criminal law. "Her liberty and autonomy can be greatly curtailed in the interests of the fetus within her.

"If she's doing something that somebody decides to be contrary to the fetus's interests -- which could be eating too much sugar, exercising too hard, smoking or drinking -- it's very dangerous to go down that route to say a woman is no longer a separate, independent person at a certain stage of pregnancy.

In other words, a woman who miscarries after doing something her in-laws don't approve of could find herself in serious trouble.

That's not even touching the abortion issue, which is, of course, very much a part of the debate. It may not be what Aysun Sesen's parents are thinking when they say they want double murder charges, but you can bet it's what the political activists who have picked up this cause are thinking about.

Ultimately, I don't think the problem is that we attach insufficient value to fetuses.

IMNSHO, I think the problem is that we attach insufficient value to living, breathing, human beings. We need to value women for themselves, and acknowledge that the murder of a woman is terrible because it ends a woman's life, not only because it happens to end a pregnancy as well.

On that note, it was nice to see the Globe and Mail taking a slightly different tack on the case and at least touching on the issue of violence against women instead of so-called fetal rights.


*Although certainly not always -- crimes against the socially marginalized being Counter-Example A.
** I suppose you could construct an argument about the loss of a child's potential, but it's hard to claim logically that murder is a crime against future potential weighted by life expentancy, rather than a crime against the actual person in question.