Justin Trudeau, Charlie Angus, and other quasi-intellectuals
of the left are quite right to take Stephen Harper to task for his condemnation
of certain Muslim practices. Harper does Islam the disservice of taking
Islam seriously.
Elitist leftist like Trudeau and Angus are inclined to treat
Islam as some harmless, quaint religious practice to be cherished and valued as
an anthropologist would cherish the discovery of the religious practices of a
recently discovered tribe of the Amazon jungle. However, Islam is
anything but harmless.
In the first place, Islam treats women as second-class
citizens, contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. An
expression of the shabby treatment of women is the obligation for women to wear
certain clothing lest they be treated as prostitutes or available women.
Though the niqab and the burka are not strictly a part of Islam, it became an
Islamic cultural practice for women to wear such clothing as a sign that as
tribal breeding stock they were already spoken for.
The hijab has an altogether different history. The
hijab originated in the 1970’s as a sign of Islamic support for the Palestinian
cause against Israel, and evolved into a sign of political Islam as such.
In effect, the woman wearing the hijab is saying that she is Muslim first, last
and always, and Canadian somewhere far down the list. And being a Muslim
woman means to be inferior to a Muslim male and superior to non-Muslims.
Politically, Canada can withstand a small number of people
who bear no loyalty to her; but it is a farce for a woman wearing a hijab, a
niqab or a burka to take an oath of loyalty to Canada when plainly they are
demonstrating the absence of such loyalty. They might as well be crossing
their fingers before the citizenship court judge. It is quite permissible
for such people to live as they wish in Canada as landed immigrants, but if
they want the full rights of citizenship then they ought to accept Canadian
law, such as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and not say they do while
withholding true consent.
The basis for tolerating these face-covering practices is a
combination of ignorance and arrogance. Stephen Harper knows enough about
Islam and the law to realize the hazards of allowing Muslims to avoid taking
seriously the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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