The latest flap is that the Quebec Soccer Federation has decided to ban Sikhs from wearing turbans (they are really more like small head scarves) on the soccer field. Their claim is that it is a health issue, although they can give no example of injury nor any explanation of how. The Canadian Soccer Federation has suspended the QSC. The latter met last night and reportedly made a decision but won’t announce it for ten days (expecting the negative publicity to go away, are they?). The separatist government has jumped in with both feet saying the QSC does not take orders from the CSC. They will thereby deprive youngsters from playing in National tournaments and what a shame. Meanwhile they suggest that if Sikhs want to play wearing turbans they can do so in their own backyards. They are so blinded by prejudice they cannot see that what they are doing (depriving kids of the right to play soccer) is exactly what they are doing to the Sikhs. But the real irony is that the right to play in Canadian tournaments is just what they would lose if the separatists had their way.
I honestly love the city of Montreal. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. But darn, this is so typical.
No mention on the TVA news last night about the soccer team that all donned turbans in protest. I had to read about hat on the Radio-Canada website.
(Emphasis added.)
No, the issue isn’t hats. It’s turbans.
I try to love my province. I really do. But things like this make it hard.
As I remember, when he said that, he said that the Quebecois are a nation. But nobody seemed to really know what Quebecois meant (Quebec francophones? Anyone born in Quebec? Anyone living in Quebec? Anyone who considered themselves Quebecois?)
What about the knives? Can they wear those?
Seriously, though, don’t Sikh men tend to have awfully long hair? How are they supposed to restrain it during play?
Being of Quebecois descent, it depresses me to see how quickly Francophones went from being an oppressed minority to oppressing every other minority they could get their hand on.
Sigh
Oh and if you listen to the Québécois media, we’re still being persecuted by the Anglophones who have banned us from playing outside of Québec… There is no winning, we will always be persecuted :dubious:
It is a horrible health risk. Follow the logic here - when one plays soccer, they sweat. If one has on a turban the sweat cannot evaporate. Since the sweat cannot evaporate, it continues to collect in the turban. A turban cannot hold an infinite amount of liquid (perhaps the full sized ones can, but certainly not the small head scarf type). When the turban like scarf thing exceeds its liquid holding capacity, sweat begins to flow into the face at an alarming rate, causing the wearer to drown. Really, it happens all the time. I saw it on the internet. In French.
Curious how only white people are ever guilty of intolerance.
Is it possible that the Sikhs are themselves guilty of intolerance by refusing to make any concessions to the Québécois majority? Is there no such as a minority intolerant of the majority, no such thing as a minority that seeks to bully and dominate the majority, no such thing as a minority that has the political power to bully and dominate the majority?
Why, exactly, should the Sikhs not be expected to make this concession? The Québécois people wish to preserve their own culture and ethnicity, which they can only do if Quebec is recognized as their rightful homeland; that is to say, a land where Québécois are the demographic, political and cultural majority. Non-Québécois who chose to live in Quebec should accept the fact the Québécois are not morally or legally obligated to accommodate them (and, yes, that includes Anglo-Americans of both Canada and the United States). Certainly Sikh communities in India would never make such concessions to Québécois or Anglo-Americans who had established ethnic communities in the homelands of the Sikhs. Why, then, should Québécois and Anglo-Americans make such concessions to Sikhs in our own homelands? Or is tolerance supposed to be a one-way street with Westerners making endless concessions to non-Westerners, who are not themselves expected to make any concessions to Westerners?
Sikhs may be a non-white minority in Quebec, but Québécois are a white minority in North America, and they have every right to do what they believe necessary to ensure their existence as a people.
Frankly, the real questions here are: What are the Sikhs even doing there in the first place, and why do they presume to dictate to the Québécois what the rules should be?
Exactly how the heck is some other guy wearing a turban or headscarf being “intolerant” of me or in any way “imposing” anything on me? It’s not like the Sikhs are running around forcing other people–at kirpan-point, one presumes–to wear turbans.
I don’t think that the Sikhs are dictating anything to the people or government of Quebec. They’re simply trying to access the rights guaranteed to them by the people and government of Quebec.
From the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, RSQ, c C-12:
If the government of Quebec intended for this statute and its provisions to protect all in Quebec (which would seem to be intended by the wording of the the statute’s preamble which refers to “all human beings”), then Sikhs resident in Quebec are protected by it too. In short, the Sikhs aren’t dictating anything: they are trying to access the rights supposedly guaranteed to them.
No, because the idea is inherently idiotic.
Well, if it’s a trivial issue, why shouldn’t the Sikhs be the ones to to concede? It was understood at the beginning that players were expected to wear very specific headgear. That being the case, Sikhs who weren’t willing to abide by that requirement had no business even applying for the teams in the first place. Your assumption seems to be that the Québécois have some kind of unquestionable obligation to accommodate the Sikhs, but this simply ignores the fact that Quebec is the homeland of the Québécois people. The Sikhs chose to immigrate to a land which was clearly not their homeland, but the homeland of another people entirely, and yet they presume that their hosts–that is, the people who would have every right to banish the Sikhs from their home–should not expect Sikhs to accept and abide by the ways of Québécois. It doesn’t matter that the issue seems “trivial” in your eyes. What matters is that the Québécois have every right to insist that the Sikhs, being both recently arrived immigrants and a minority, have no business insisting that the Québécois accommodate them in this or any other matter–and the supposed triviality of the issue is irrelevant.
And of course, your attitude begs the question: Why are the Sikhs even in Quebec in the first place?
Well, no. Immigration is primarily an area of federal jurisdiction. Once individuals lawfully immigrate to Canada, in compliance with federal law, they have the right to live anywhere in Canada, including Quebec. The government of Quebec has no right to banish any citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
Because they have either been born in Quebec, moved to Quebec from elsewhere in Canada, or immigrated to Quebec from some other country, consistent with Canada’s federal immigration laws.
Le sigh.
Really? There’s no such thing as an intolerant minority? It’s impossible that a minority could have the political power to oppress the majority? In all human history, such things have never happened?
You need to explain why Québécois are morally obligated to accept substantial populations of Sikhs–or anybody else–into their homeland in the first place, and you need to explain why non-Québécois, whatever their racial, cultural and ethnic origins, should not accept and respect the right of Québécois to their status as the demographic, political and cultural majority in Quebec. Sikhs don’t like having to take off their turbans to play soccer in Quebec? Anglo-Americans don’t like the communication problems that will arise from not being able to speak French in Quebec, or the many Québécois who will simply refuse to have anything to do with them? Boo fucking hoo. It’s their home as a people, and they owe nothing to Sikhs, Anglo-Americans or anybody else who may choose to travel to their country.
Being in the minority does not mean that you are automatically in the right, nor does it mean that the majority owes you anything, no matter how trivial some specific issue may seem.