Lorrie Goldstein @sunlorrie 45m45 minutes ago Here's my Thursday Sun Media column: More reasonable than racist
http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/18/more-reasonable-than-racist?token=8f9fabe7a7baee6133ffb21622251449 …
#cdnpoli
More reasonable than racist
Permit me today to make a modest proposal.
That is most of the 67% of Canadians surveyed in a recent Forum poll who believe niqab-wearing women should reveal their faces while taking the oath of citizenship, are not racists.
Certainly some of them are racists and are using their opposition to the niqab as a false flag for the fact that when all is said and done, they just hate Muslims.
But no more, I suspect, than are today condemning the surprise re-election of Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel as a false flag for the fact that when all is said and done, they just hate Jews.
I would argue the main reason why more than two-thirds of 1,320 Canadian adults surveyed last Friday and Saturday oppose the wearing of the niqab at citizenship ceremonies, compared to only 22% in favour and 10% undecided, has nothing to do with what Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is suggesting it has to do with.
That is, as Trudeau said of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, that his attitude towards Muslims reflects the views of the (Liberal) government of William Lyon Mackenzie King in the lead-up to the Second World War, that when it came to Jewish immigration, “none is too many.”
Nor are they falling for Harper’s alleged fear-mongering and button-pushing about Islam, or his so-called male arrogance in “telling a woman what to wear."
Ditto that anyone who shares the views of more than two-thirds of Canadians must therefore also agree with Conservative MP Larry Miller that any Muslim woman who insists on wearing the niqab while taking the citizenship oath should, “stay the hell where you came from.”
Rather, the main reason most Canadians feel the way they do on this issue is that they are reflecting the values of a modern, secular democracy in which they have been taught by many of the same people now condemning them to be intolerant of intolerance.
Surely it is reasonable to see the niqab (and burka) as symbols of the oppression of women, given that any country where many women wear them – take a tour through the Arab and Muslim countries of the Mideast –- has little respect for the rights of women.
The Qur’an, as moderate and progressive Muslims like Toronto Sun columnists Tarek Fatah and Farzana Hassan remind us, does not require women to wear niqabs or burkas, only that women (and men) dress modestly in public.
In fact, the niqab is a cultural dress, not mandatory religious attire.
Men in the countries described above, while also instructed by the Qur’an to dress modestly, certainly do not walk around in what amount to canvas tents, covered from head to toe, as a sign of their obedience to Allah.
This lest the exposure of even a man’s ankle drive a woman into an uncontrollable sexual frenzy, for which the man will then be blamed for dressing promiscuously.
Nor are men in the countries referred to above required to be in the company of a female relative while they go about their daily lives, less they risk being assaulted, even raped, by gangs of roving female thugs for their immorality.
Our secular democracy also values the concepts of openness and transparency, including such principles as one having the right to face one’s accusers and to observe their facial expressions and general demeanour, not only on the witness stand, but when interacting with others both in business and socially.
Finally, the glib allegation Harper is “telling women what to wear” is a trivialization of the serious issue that in many cases (not all) a woman wearing a niqab is doing so precisely because she has been ordered to do so by her husband, father or other male relatives.
The unfortunate thing about how the controversy of the niqab is playing out is that, as often occurs in our country, many politicians, pundits, academics and the intelligentsia are out of step with the public’s reasonable and complex views.
And so they make absurd claims, such as the argument Canadians don’t understand the issue, or resort to mockery, suggesting anyone who disagrees with them is a Neanderthal and a racist.
That, of course, is the logic of those arrogant souls we all know who constantly crave to put others in their place, the very thing, ironically, they accuse Harper of doing.
More reasonable than racist | GOLDSTEIN | Columnists | Opinion | Toronto Sun
Iranian women protesting niqab in 1970's
