The Secrets Of Vancouver BC, Canada

Allowing For Fundamentalist Gender Discrimination?

The case of  burkha rights in Quebec…

Two solitudes and the niqab

The case of Naema Ahmed, the niqab-wearing woman who was expelled from a French-language class in Montreal, has turned into a cause célèbre across the country. It is a fascinating story about reasonable accommodation, competing rights and where we ought to draw the line on tolerance in a democratic society.

Naema Ahmed, a 29-year-old pharmacist from Egypt, joined a language class for immigrants last August. She insisted on wearing a face veil and she sat at the back of the class so that the men wouldn’t be able to see her. (There were three men in the class of 20). For private instruction, she would retreat to a corner with the female instructor.

Tensions reportedly mounted in the class, which was also designed to help integrate the students into Quebec society. The next part of the course required the students to sit around a U-shaped table and converse. She didn’t want to do it because of the men. The school couldn’t guarantee her another female instructor. It also decided she couldn’t be taught properly unless the instructor could see her mouth. So it asked her to leave. “We tried certain arrangements, but the demands just became too great,” said the school’s head, Paul-Émile Bourque.

Some time after that, Ms. Ahmed filed a complaint with Quebec’s human-rights commission. She also joined another language class. This week, she was called out of class again and invited to either remove her veil or leave. She left.

“There is no ambiguity about this question,” said Quebec’s immigration minister, Yolande James. “If you want to [attend] our classes, if you want to integrate into Quebec society, here are our values. We want to see your face.”

Meantime, in the other solitude, Quebec authorities were widely being compared to the Taliban.

“[T]hrowing women out of school … sounds like something that happens in the wilder reaches of Kandahar,” opined the Montreal Gazette.

“What part of the word ‘freedom’ does Quebec not understand?” wondered Naomi Lakritz in the Calgary Herald. Quebec, she said, “is fast becoming the most hostile province in Canada for anyone of a minority culture or religion.” The Winnipeg Free Press observed that “the Canadianization of Naema Ahmed has been sadly set back.” (Others might maintain that her decision to lodge a human-rights complaint shows she’s coming along quite nicely). And The Globe and Mail said, “It may be practised in some Arab and west Asian countries, such as the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but empowering state agents to enforce dress codes and bar the education of women is hitherto unknown in Canada.”

I have always been for more of a melting pot situation for immigrants… than with the Canadian method of encouraging immigrants to hold on to their country’s heritage. Our method encourages ghettos and isolated communities.

The reason you move to Canada (or any country for that matter) is that you appreciate the country’s values and opportunities. If you want everything in your new country to be the same as your home country, you’ve got to ask why did you move? What happens when women wear something offensive (shorts?) in a Muslim country. (Yes a burkha or niqab is offensive.)

You’d think that women moving to Canada would appreciate the hard-fought rights that our women enjoy… like showing your face in public.

photo credit: alphadesigner