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Go home Quebec, you're drunk
It's a sad and strange day when I agree with anything that comes out of Jason Kenney's mouth, but broken clocks, twice a day, etc. Quebec's proposed charter of values that will ban public servants from wearing any religious symbol (but really we mean Muslim religious symbols) is so completely batshit insane that I'm amazed it got this far.
I wonder what even constitutes a religious symbol. I mean, I used to wear ankhs and pentacles and inverted crosses, not out of any religious conviction but because I was Goth As Fuck. In Montreal, would a Habs jersey count? I mean, it's really unclear. Also racist. And loopy.
There is a certain type of New Atheism that's essentially a continuation of White Man's Burden by other means. This is its exemplar.
I wonder what even constitutes a religious symbol. I mean, I used to wear ankhs and pentacles and inverted crosses, not out of any religious conviction but because I was Goth As Fuck. In Montreal, would a Habs jersey count? I mean, it's really unclear. Also racist. And loopy.
There is a certain type of New Atheism that's essentially a continuation of White Man's Burden by other means. This is its exemplar.
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As for that crucifix in the National Assembly in Québec City, it was put up there in 1939 by a Union Nationale motion, to spite to the progressives criticising how close the UN was to the church at the time. (Progressives that would be apoplectic to see this proposal today.) Pretty ironic that now the government wants to cling to its National Crucifix as a symbol of our history!!
You're being too kind
I think you had it right when you said "also racist". This is the PQ sinking to its tribal roots and playing the race/culture card for all its worth, hoping to shore up its frightened, largely small-town base of support and meld it with an urban bourgeoisie uncomfortable with
foreignersbrown people being, well, foreign. The former are basically just scared of that they haven't really seen much of, outside of the local restaurant serving mets Chinois, but among the latter I suppose are some well-meaning Francophone's burden types as well.But it's ugly and base and dangerous. René Levesque is probably spinning in his grave; but Jacques Parizeau is rubbing his arthritic hands and chortling.
Meanwhile, if I were living in the province, I think I'd be giving strong consideration to putting on a skull-cap or turban or large crucifix — or maybe all three at once.
Or maybe we should all just start wearing a hijab in solidarity until this racist filth is washed out of the body politic.
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I think a mass donning of other people's prominent religious symbols is a nice protest. I feel like there could be real ecumenical (and secular) solidarity on this one, which is the one possible redeeming thing in this whole debacle.
A potted history of Quebec Separatism by Young Geoffrey
I think a mass donning of other people's prominent religious symbols is a nice protest.
Reminds me of this one from last spring, when a soccer team without a Sihk on it decided to don turbans to protest the banning of turban wearing. (Ban's been reversed, not after the Canadian soccer authority said it wasn't kosher, of course, but only after FIFA did.)
It's weird because I always thought beyond the silly separatist thing, the PQ was reasonably socially progressive.
I take issue with calling the separatist thing "silly". It grew out of a very real oppression of French by English and (along with Trudeau's push for linguistic equality across the whole country) resulted in a vastly altered and greatly improved situation in the province. French Canadians really were second-class citizens, even in the province in which they were the vast majority, until the 1970s.
It was also a social democratic movement and (much like the NDP) still is in much of its grass roots. That said, it was also at its base an ethnic movement. "Québec au Québecois!" was at least in part code meaning "Quebec for white, French- from-France (whoever long ago)!". The inclusive, social-democratic movement and the xenophobic/racist elements of the party have always been uncomfortable bed-fellows at best.
When Jacques Parizeau drunkenly rambled on about how the '95 referundum was lost because of "money and the ethnic vote" the racist cat was out of the bag. And Marois seems to have decided that it's the only winning card she has to play.
Right. I have a book to typeset. Must be off ...
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(I kid, of course. I can't stand the winters here, even.)
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Yes, it's a disturbing trend I've seen even in some of my supposedly progressive friends: the idea that it's totally OK to bash Muslims to your heart's content as long as you're doing it in the name of atheism, as opposed to, say, Christianity or American patriotism or whatever. When challenged, they'll insist that no, no, they're not being racist at all, it's just that they hate all religions, and the fact that in practice they devote 90% of their wrath to one religion is totally coincidental. Even if they're saying basically the same hateful things that a lot of the right-wingers do. It's like they think atheism is a get-out-of-racism-free card.
Possibly the worst example was when one friend - who ironically considers herself to be a committed anti-racist - responded to a link someone else posted on FB about a Muslim woman in the US being murdered in what appeared to be, and was being investigated as, a hate crime, by saying that as soon as she saw the photo of the victim wearing a hijab she lost all sympathy for her, and that there was no point investigating it as a hate crime because she'd obviously been killed by her husband or father or other male relatives, because that is apparently what happens to all Muslim women always and there is no possibility of any Muslim woman ever being killed a white racist instead, despite, you know, all the hate crimes against Muslims that have actually happened. And despite the fact that cops usually have to be dragged kicking and screaming into investigating something as a hate crime so they probably wouldn't be treating it as such unless there was evidence that it was.
Even when someone else, who lived in the area where it happened, responded to her saying that the Muslim population in that area, including the victim's family, was mostly pretty educated, Westernized and decidedly non-fundamentalist, and that the family had been receiving death threats and harassment for some time before this happened, she insisted that no, no, it absolutely had to be an honour killing, and that no other possibility should be considered unless absolutely every male relative she had had an ironclad alibi, and even then, they could have hired someone to do it. And her "lost all sympathy" comments also seemed to imply that all this was also somehow the victim's own fault for being a Muslim.
And when I tried to point out that this was racist as fuck (and sexist also, with the victim-blaming), she pulled the "BUT IT'S TOTES OK BECAUSE ATHEISM" line. *sigh*
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But it seems like her particular variety of militant atheism just acts as a huge ethical blind spot for her - as soon as religion is in the picture, any other ethical/political considerations fly out the window, and it becomes all about how religion (and, it seems, Islam in particular) is Teh Eeeevil and responsible for absolutely all the ills in the world always.
It's really frustrating because if she was just awful in general I could just write her off, but when someone is usually a good person but just has one particular area of awfulness it's harder to know how to handle it.
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This New Atheism thing appears to be international, it's a disturbing trend I've seen even in some of my supposedly progressive friends yup: here in France too. I like to annoy them on days when annoyed by the reversed racism and sexism I encounter daily as an exolotl from the far North and lately had the pleasure to inform one stern and proud Atheist on how I fought to be taken up into Christianity as a teen.
He had been going on about how he fought to be de-baptized which included complicated Kafkaesque procedurals for years and I said, it was hard enough getting water on my head in the totally social-democratic lutheran church of Sweden as an atheist parent´s child.
His jaw fell, he had supposed applause from fellow Atheists for his hateful speech. Me, I´ll die a Sceptic, I have since left the Evangelical and serious converting thoughts about the Catholic church behind, but/because... I don´t like sheepish behaviour. Or as an Lj-friend said: I was very pious as a child but I left when I noticed the Chruch was full of assholes.
What I mostly dislike, is the arrogance involved, how most Atheists I met always tend to treat others as if they knew nothing. One isn´t necessarily a Creationist for not bowing to their pre-fabricated opinions, either.
Also, Atheist Conversation is so limited, all they ever talk about is God.
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Don't make me start to support this ban! (I kid, I like beards. Moustaches, OTOH...)
What I mostly dislike, is the arrogance involved, how most Atheists I met always tend to treat others as if they knew nothing. One isn´t necessarily a Creationist for not bowing to their pre-fabricated opinions, either.
It reminds me a lot of evangelical Christians who believe that people who aren't evangelical Christians have never heard of Jesus.
I always feel like, because I was raised atheist (we celebrated some Jewish cultural traditions, but I was never told that God was a real thing) I'm far less militant about it than atheists who were once religious. I have no zeal to convert anyone to my beliefs, as long as they don't piss me off by trying to convert me. I do get really embarrassed at the New Atheists, who are loudmouths and just as bad as any other fanatics.
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Of course, I just love the fact that Dawkins is trying to push the belief that religion is the source of all assholes and then sets about disproving it with every damn thing he says.
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Dawkins enrages me. I understand how reasonable religious people feel about the fundies taking up all the airspace.
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When I was a high-school exchange student in the 90s in France, I had it clearly explained to me that because the school system was secular, obviously overt religious symbols (i.e. hijabs) weren't permitted for anyone there. However, crucifix necklaces were subtle and thus allowed. This wasn't racist, of course, because you couldn't come to school tied to a giant crucifix either.
If it had really come up as an issue while I was there (it didn't, though they made it law a few years later), I would have found a way to wear what was essentially a hijab as a fashion statement.
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The PQ seems to have adopted the undercurrent of xenophobic ethnic nationalism that pops up in a lot of Europe. It's just weirder here since it's a population who are immigrants themselves doing it, even if they like to forget that fact.
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I like how militant atheists are working so hard to bring Jews and Muslims together with a common enemy.
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