And incidentally, this is a ridiculous claim.
The Red Ensign, for one, was never quite the national flag of Canada; it was sometimes used as such and had become the de facto flag, but sometimes the Union Jack was used.
In fact, by the time the flag debate came around, most Canadians - not just Quebecers - wanted a distinctive, completely Canadian flag. It was a formal policy plank of the Liberal Party.
And thank God. Now we have a beautiful, distinctive flag that’s entirely ours.
Touche.
And I won’t disagree, except for the fact that the Canadians you refer to, no longer reflected the culture of the United Empire Loyalists, and that is mostly due to immigration subsequent to the exodus from America.
I was raised in the last bastion of that society, in Niagara on the Lake. I’ll bet you never had to study the history of the war of 1812 under the grandchild oak of the tree that provided refuge to the 1st parliament of Upper Canada for a whole year in grade 8. Having to listen of the glorious Boer war and all the other accomplishments of empire. Singing God Save the Queen every day.
This culture is finished. The glorious empire is finished. No one flies the Union Jack any more. No one sings God Save the Queen any more.
All I’m saying here is that English Canada allowed itself to evolve without government intervention or attempt to control its culture.
And while francophone Quebecois might like to view themselves as a founding people with a distinct society, they really have no counterpart.
It is a ridiculous claim, but things were more complicated than your post makes it seem. There was a lot of opposition to the proposed design, as well as to the whole concept of getting rid of the Red Ensign. I’ve read an article that makes the claim that far from evacuating the Loyalist heritage from Canada, the adoption of the Maple Leaf Flag was done by a small clique of Ontario WASPs whose understanding of the concerns of minority ethnic groups and of francophones was severely limited. My Internet connection is too wonky right now to search for this article, but one thing I remember is that even inside Quebec, for example in the conservative press such as the Montréal-Matin newspaper, support for a new flag was far from unanimous, many commentators proposing instead a dual flag system for the dual nations (i.e. Red Ensign and Quebec flag). Incidentally this is sort of what we have today, given the level of support the fleur-de-lys flag enjoys in Quebec.
Culture changes over time. Do you think Quebec’s culture is the same as it was 50 years ago?
A counterpart to what?
No, because the government can only influence it to a certain degree.
To their view of themselves. There is no longer a recognizable founding people other than francophone Quebeckers who want to be viewed as distinct from all the immigrants in the ROC who are content enough to get along and tolerate each other.
I know that doesn’t fit with your view of the world which depends on your persecution complex requiring the big bad English boogeyman.
You know who else felt that way ? The Afrikaaners. And left to their own devices , you know what happened when they tried to ensure that they have a distinct society.
Really? You just compared Québec nationalism to apartheid?
I’m pretty sure that’s what I just said: you’re opposed to one of the most important cornerstones of liberal democracy. Which is fine, I suppose. I mean, thank God you’re a minority on that, because the Republic couldn’t survive if your view became widespread, but as it stands, you provide a largely unique perspective on the debate. Well, unique at least insofar as most people who argue against the concept of freedom of conscience are religious fundamentalists, and not atheists. But if you’re comfortable with that company, that’s entirely your look-out. Still, the idea that you “see both sides of the debate” is pretty laughable, since you’re rejecting the fundamental principle that underlies the entire conversation.
My crude reply a few posts ago was meant to make fun of your belief that the coercive force of withholding government services should be used to put veil-wearing women into an uncomfortable situation. A situation that is equivalent to asking any woman from any culture to strip naked before getting her health card. You seem to support this position because of your belief that women are forced into wearing veils out of some savage cultures’ use of force and desire to show ownership. This view is a caricature of these cultures. It’s based on ignorance backed by willfully ignoring what is right in front of your face.
By now there are 100s of news articles about the student in the language class. Maybe write down on a piece of paper all the characteristics you can get about the woman from a sampling of these articles. I think you will see that she is not under threat of some honor-killing relative; she is wearing the veil because it is like keeping your dick in your pants while out in public. She is doing it of her own free will and makes it clear she is willing to bend her personal rules when necessary. Most of these women are willing to do so as long as they are being serviced by a female employee. It’s no different than being physically searched or scanned by a member of the same sex at the airport.
I wasn’t making a false claim of simplicity. I didn’t even get into the fact that Canada had been humiliated by Egypt’s rejection of Canadian troops as peacekeepers on the basis that Canada had the British flag on its own. But I wasn’t claiming the entire issue was just to appease one group.
This claim is
Factually incorrect and rather easily refuted by simply Googling “Canada flag debate” and reading the facts, and
Absolutely baffling. What exactly does the flag lack that was needed by “minority ethnic groups and… francophones”?
The support of ignorance?
It is not the equivalent of being stripped naked. Would you be shocked if your mom walked around naked at home in front of her family? And yet this niqab wearing woman would regularly take off her veil at home in front of her family. Not the same thing at all.
I really don’t know how to respond to this. The reason things like the Niqab exist is precisely because of this. You can coach it in niceties and say that the women are being protected (from whom?), or are following their religion (not a requirement), but it doesn’t change the fact of why the practice still exists today in the majority of the world.
I’m sure some slaves continued to serve their masters after the end of slavery because they knew of no other way and thought it was proper to do so because their slave owners may have treated them kindly.
If it makes you feel better about yourself to frame it that way, sure. Let’s stipulate that theists are, by definition, ignorant. It doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of the human race believes in some form or another of god, or that historically, when forced to choose between their state or their deity, most people choose their deity, to the detriment of the general peace and welfare of the state. A democratic nation can only survive if the individual’s right to worship (or, more significantly for you and I, not worship) is carefully guarded. If it’s not, war and ruin is a certain outcome.
Now, obviously this is not an absolute: some religious practices are inherently inimical to a free and open society, and there is ample room for discussion about where that line should be drawn. But your position exists outside the framework of that discussion, because you do not recognize the necessity of those protections in the first place. You cannot contribute meaningfully to the debate about the limits of freedom of religion if you do not accept the premise that people should be free to follow their consciences.
Now, generally speaking, there’s nothing wrong with someone questioning the essential assumptions of a debate. However, the prospect of an atheist decrying the concept of freedom of religion is no less bizarrely self-destructive than an African American arguing for the reversal of the Emancipation Proclamation. The staggering irony of a person arguing against the very principle that allows him to make the argument instantly discredits anything that person has to say on the subject.
And you think “the government” would attempt to set in concrete the culture of Quebec as it was 50 years ago if it could? Reread my post and try to understand it:
And this, people, is why Quebecers are wary of Canadian-style “multiculturalism”. (In quotes because it isn’t real multiculturalism anyway.) It’s seen as a way to reduce one of the founding peoples of this country to a simple ethnic group, that should “get with the program” and subsume themselves into Canadianity. Oh sure, they’ll still eat tourtière or poutine or whatever it is they eat, Canadian “multiculturalism” is all about ethnic colour, but other than that they should be just ethnic Canadians like any other. Like the francophones outside Quebec, pretty much. Am I correctly understanding what you’re telling me, TFD?
FWIW, TFD, both Quebec and Canada are societies with a recognizable, distinct culture. Canada isn’t pure Loyalist anymore, of course, but Quebec isn’t pure Habitant anymore either. Not even close. Both societies have changed a lot from what they used to be both under interior and exterior pressures. But both still exist.
Read my posts instead of pretending to read my mind through your opaque crystal ball. Maybe even read some political thought from Quebec instead of just going with what they tell you. (That’d be great, but of course I’m not expecting anything even close.)
He did, but hey, in the 90s they were comparing it to Nazism, so obviously someone’s moving in the right direction!
The thing is that in our culture, asking a woman to remove her full-face veil is not like asking her to strip naked. Yes, we understand that people from other cultures view things differently, which is why we’re ready to do some efforts to accommodate them. That’s what being an open society means. But accommodation is a two-way street, and there’s a point where demands for accommodation become unreasonable.
Yes, there was some two-way accommodation done with her at the beginning. This is how it should work. But at the end her demands were disrupting the class. At that point, we have to weigh the benefit of her being taught our language on a balance with the drawback of the other students having their class disrupted, as well as the cost to our society.
Really Rick? You’re condemning an article written by professional research historians as factually incorrect on the basis of a few minutes’ Googling? I wish I had that kind of confidence. And now I really want to find this article. You may not agree with its conclusions, and indeed it is a minority position over the flag debate, but at least you have to read it. It may have to wait sometime during this week, when I have some free time and a reliable Internet connection. And I believe I read this article collated with other Canadian studies articles in a book; if that’s the only place it’s found it’ll have to wait a month for me to find it.
Since you’ve compared wearing a piece of clothing to the SS and slavery, I am not sure why I would continue to bother with your analogies. Anyway, out in public, she feels she is exposing herself when taking off the veil to members of the opposite sex. That’s all that matters. The list of shit you are adding to her traditional style of dress, from slavery, Nazis, feminine repression, and how she dresses at home are all things you are adding to simple facts. The things you are adding do not reflect reality as demonstrated by an independent young woman defending her liberty and learning a language in a foreign land.
Like I said before, you can’t imagine it. You can’t even think of the word niqab without all this other shit you need to add to it. I think you’ve only replied so that you get another chance to say whatever other garbage is rolling around in your mind about wearing a piece of clothing.
If you reply again I would appreciate it if you can find links between wearing some clothing and devil-worship, communism, hemorrhoids, long lines, and impotence. If you can think of other evils from human history then by all means, link them to clothing as well.
And here I thought she, and other niqab-wearers, were getting pushed around by a bunch of arrogant, bigoted bullies. Thanks for the clarification.
Because the purpose of the Niqab is to protect ownership of women by men. Hint: ‘ownershp’ of people equals slavery. I’m sorry you are so dense you can’t figure that out.
That she ‘feels’ exposed doesn’t counter the fact that she isn’t exposed as any normal person would determine it.
Thank-you almighty judge of what is normal and why people wear the Niqab. I can only hope that someday your judgement may be cast upon some of my harmless behavior.
No, I’m condemning it because it’s false and silly. It is simply in total defiance of the facts. As it happens, you can Google up the broad facts, but my familiarity with the issue was not something I Googled up just on the spot.
If your normal behavior promoted a practice based on the subjugation of women and discriminated against men, then I’d probably have something to say about it. Promoting the idea that women are property isn’t a harmless behavior, btw. Just wanted to keep that clear in case you missed it when you were tripping over yourself trying to maintain that all cultures and their practices are morally equivalent, my old darling (channeling Rumpole).
I only hope to someday have property that has a pharmacy degree, is multilingual, and seeks to expand civil liberties. I think she has 3 children too. Sounds just like a typical, wait fuck that, exceptional, Western woman that happens to have a desire to wear some traditional clothes.
You on the other hand can’t get past your prejudices to see what is right in front of your face, or to be accurate on the other side of your country.
Since I know what you are going to say, you can reply to my next response.
What prejudices are those?
Are they my expectations that my fellow citizens will treat me with the same consideration and respect as they seem to want to be treated? She wants me to be considerate to her choices and then ignores my simple request that I can see her face when she talks to me? If I’m a female, then she would give me that consideration, if I’m a male then too bad for me. If you can’t see who is the prejudiced one here, then there is little hope for you.
Also, it sometimes a cigar is MORE than just a cigar. This isn’t just about a veil and some woman’s claim that she’d feel naked without it, it is about society needing some assurance that what was forced upon this woman by her culture isn’t continued along to her daughters and other women who don’t have any other opportunity to say no to those who would force it upon them in the name of their religion. By condoning this we give into those who wish to continue these practices. Is this what you consider my prejudice? That I don’t want women forced to do worse thing against their will than have to remove a veil?
And again, there is a simple solution for all of this. Have her bring her god to the courtroom where she is making the claim that this is required of her by that god. He can defend the practice. Otherwise, it is just a fairytale perpetrated by men on women to force them into subservience.