The flip side of free choice? Responsibility.

Great article. We all want maximum freedoms to make any choice we want to make but when those choices, unfortunately, blow back in our faces, we all blame others for the consequences. Now, in some cases, it's indeed the society's fault, but in many cases, it's our own fault.

For instance, we love popping pills. Something small happens to our bodies, & we are crying the world to the doctor. We are happy at getting a prescription. But when those pills start causing harmful side effects, the whole medical profession gets the blame. Question should be asked to those people that who told you to run to your doctor for every small ailment & why not try taking better care of your body & health by yourself.

Another case is people immigrating to foreign countries. Before immigration, those people have a nice picture of their future home. After moving to that place, when they are having difficulties in securing a certain level & kind of job, reaching a certain social status (preferably, the same one they had back home), & overall, securing the same kind of life they had back home, those immigrants don't blame themselves for moving themselves & their whole families to another country, all based on a little ideal picture they had in their mind, but they blame the host country. Perhaps, those immigrants should've verified their rosy mental picture of their future home against the reality.

Similarly, people choosing to eat sugary, fatty junk foods & then not taking responsibility for its consequences. People choose to smoke but blame the cigarette companies after getting cancer. Americans want to have their "rights to guns" but when people are killed for no reason, whatsoever, guns get the blame. Nobody is forcing anyone to smoke, drink alcohol, eat sugary & fatty junk foods, or buy & use guns in the public, become an immigrant, or become an addict of popping pharma pills, but when the outcome is unpleasant from those choices, don't blame the society for your ills.
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http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/we-must-remember-the-flip-side-of-free-choice-is-responsibility/

We live in an era of unprecedented choice & personal autonomy.

Beyond the massive range of options in food, merchandise & entertainment that are made possible by a global marketplace, of even greater significance is the freedom we now possess to make independent decisions about our own personal identities & lifestyles.

It has become an indispensable component of modern Canadian life that neither law nor society should have anything to say about an individual’s choice when it comes to such once-controversial topics as sex, abortion, gender, marriage, parenthood, divorce or any other manifestation of life as it is lived. ...

Our range of choices is continually expanding, pushing far past the limits of old taboos. The Supreme Court of Canada recently ruled, for example, that we now have the right to choose the manner & timing of our own deaths, in cases of terminal illness & with the assistance of a physician. Given events in the US, as well as recent policy discussions in Canada, our laws on marijuana may soon be shifting toward greater choice, as well.

This sanctification of personal choice above all else has become so deeply ingrained that, when a high school student in Toronto was told by her principal that she couldn’t wear a sports bra to school, she organized “Crop Top Day” to give voice to scantily clad teenaged girls demanding the right to wear whatever they want, whenever they feel like it, school dress codes be damned.

By & large, all this choice is a good thing. While there may still be sound reasons to require appropriate attire in certain circumstances, the notion that adult Canadians ought to be given wide latitude to live their lives however they wish is to be applauded. Indeed, with many of these issues, such as sexual orientation & gender identity, the matter is not a choice at all; rather, society is simply recognizing & respecting personal destiny. As it should.

Yet there’s another important, but little discussed, aspect to this veneration of choice that requires recognition. At some point, we need to acknowledge that behind all these choices we’re making lie heightened expectations for personal responsibility & liability. It is clearly inappropriate to demand maximum choice, then blame others when the outcome proves unpleasant or unexpected.

That’s not what happened last week, when the Quebec Superior Court awarded smokers $15.5 billion as compensation for the consequences of their own decisions.

At issue in the class-action lawsuit was the degree to which smokers themselves should be held responsible for choosing to smoke in the face of ample evidence, some of it dating back to the 1950s & 1960s, that smoking was a dangerous & addictive habit. The individual decision to start smoking, according to Justice Brian Riordan, is “essentially stupidity, too often fuelled by the delusion of invincibility that marks our teenage years.” Yet, remarkably, the judge held that “we do not attribute any fault to dependent smokers who did not quit for whatever reason” later in life. The court ruling thus absolves individual smokers from culpability for their own continuing situation. Instead, the burden of guilt falls squarely upon cigarette companies for knowingly selling a deadly product. That said, as nasty as tobacco may be, it still requires willing buyers & a permissive government to complete the market. In defending his massive award, Justice Riordan asked: “If the companies are allowed to walk away unscathed now, what would be the message to other industries that, today or tomorrow, find themselves in a similar moral conflict?”

This is not a rhetorical question. In fact, there are numerous other products—some of which are marketed & sold by government — that today pose identical moral conflicts. Alcohol is an obvious comparison. Fatty, salty or sugary foods are other examples of legal products with potentially unwelcome consequences. Yet, in the face of a constant barrage of public health announcements, media campaigns, & political statements on obesity & healthy living, people continue to consume these products. And while we properly celebrate the right to be able to make such choices, what happens when some of these folks later come to regret the exercise of their personal autonomy? Based on the cigarette ruling, decisions of these kinds will be sloughed off as mere “stupidity,” & given official forgiveness. But why should the ultimate responsibility for bad outcomes always lie with someone else, preferably, a corporation that can afford multi-billion-dollar payouts & that’s made to play the scapegoat?

In an age of unlimited choice, we must learn to accept greater responsibility for the consequences of the many choices we make, even if the courts are eager to let us off the hook.

Respect women's right to wear veil in court

A great article & a good piece of advice from a competent person with years of experience in the legal sphere.

However, a majority of people in the West will start saying that how a court can pass a judgement when the witness is hidden behind a piece of cloth. Heck, in Canada, the current government of Mr. Harper & Co. have already brought a piece of legislation in the parliament, to ban veil in citizenship oath ceremonies, just so the judges can see that everyone is actually reading the oath. What's next? Keeping tabs on all immigrants, to see if they do really love their country & are loyal to it (sort of like North Korea).

If loyalty is to be measured by actually reading the oath, then what about all those rich Canadian business elites who stash their billions in offshore havens, & avoid paying taxes like the plague, but still use all the amenities of being a Canadian citizen. Are they loyal Canadians? Anyway, I digress.

So, on one end, public complains that people who have years of relevant experiences (to the given subject) & competencies should make such calls. When one makes such a call, then they decry why he/she is saying such things. So, the public will be happy as long as the person, saying something important in public sphere, merely confirm their biases. Anything other than that is a blight on that person's competencies.

One other common comment, which really rile me up, in such situation is said by the common public, is why don't these immigrants go back to their own countries, if they wanted to keep following their native country's cultures & norms. Good question.

My answer is no immigrant want to leave their beloved country & start a whole new life in another country, especially, since, their adopted country don't even accept them as full citizens. Developed countries stop interfering, politically & militarily, in developing countries' affairs & let them sink or swim. A majority of immigrants will stop migrating themselves.

After all, UN was made to end international wars & bring peace around the world. Well, the world history of the past 60 years has shown something else ... there are now more displaced people than ever & human suffering around the world has only increased in the past 60 years.
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http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/apr/17/respect-womens-right-to-weir-veil-in-court-says-britains-most-senior-judge

Judges must show respect to women who choose to keep their faces covered due to their religious beliefs, the UK’s most senior judge has said.
 
Lord Neuberger said judges must have “an understanding of different cultural & social habits” in their bid to show fairness to those involved in trials.
 
Addressing the Criminal Justice Alliance, the supreme court president said: “It is necessary to have some understanding as to how people from different cultural, social, religious or other backgrounds think & behave & how they expect others to behave.

“Well-known examples include how some religions consider it inappropriate to take the oath, how some people consider it rude to look other people in the eye, how some women find it inappropriate to appear in public with their face uncovered, & how some people deem it inappropriate to confront others or to be confronted - for instance with an outright denial.”

In 2014 Judge Peter Murphy upheld a ruling allowing Muslim woman Rebekah Dawson to stand trial wearing a full-face veil.
 
The 22-year-old waived her right to give evidence in her defence, however, after it was ruled that she would have to remove the niqab, which made only her eyes visible, if she took the stand.
 
She later admitted witness intimidation after denying the charge during a seven-day trial.
 
In a lengthy speech entitled “Fairness in the courts: the best we can do”, Neuberger accepted that judges tended to come from privileged backgrounds & warned of the dangers of this. “A white male public school judge presiding in a trial of an unemployed traveller from eastern Europe accused of assaulting or robbing a white female public school woman will, I hope, always be unbiased,” he said.

“However he should always think to himself what his subconscious may be thinking or how it may be causing him to act; & he should always remember how things may look to the defendant, & indeed to the jury & to the public generally.”

Neuberger said judges & lawyers should always keep in mind how “intimidating” the court process could be for those involved in trials, including “the parties, their families, the victims, the witnesses & the jurors”.

Speaking in the context of legal aid cuts, he said ensuring all parties involved in a case understood the goings-on in a court had become more important because “people are having to choose between representing themselves or not getting justice at all”.

Israel lobby's attack on academic freedom

As an update on this opinion piece (which is a good one), the said conference in the piece was cancelled by its organizers. It was supposed to be held on April 17-19, 2015.

In the end, academic freedom lost the battle.

It's funny that no individuals & the Western media make any sound using statements like "freedom of speech" when these kinds of attacks are done by Jewish lobbies to silence the academics, but if you even try to talk to people what's the point of disrespecting a religion by drawing its sacred individuals ... whoa ... "Muslims are against freedom of speech".

But, hey, the West is oh so fair & balanced !!!
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/03/israel-lobby-attack-academic-freedom-150322061358503.html

For years, Israel lobby groups have slammed the Palestinians' call for a boycott of Israeli universities as an attack on "academic freedom". Now the mask has well & truly slipped.
 
Next month, the University of Southampton in the UK will hold a conference on Israel & international law to bring together "scholars from law, politics, philosophy, theology, anthropology, cultural studies history & other connected disciplines".
 
However, in an unashamed attack on free speech, the university has come under increasing pressure to cancel the gathering.
 
Late last year, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, & the Union of Jewish Students wrote to the head of Southampton's Law School, claiming that the conference would "surpass the acceptable".
 
In February, the organisations met with umbrella group Universities UK, where they complained that "freedom of speech" was preventing universities from "considering valid representations on behalf of the Jewish community". Strangely, British ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould was also present.
 
In recent weeks, a steady stream of attacks on the University of Southampton has even included the suggestion that the conference would make the university "complicit in furthering the rising & harrowing tide of anti-Semitism in Europe".
 
For their part, the university has emphasised its legal obligations to protect free speech. A spokesperson said that the university "is committed to academic freedom, free speech & opportunities for staff & students to engage with a wide range of opinions & perspectives".
 
Meanwhile, hundreds of academics have signed a statement in support of academic freedom. Professors from Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Harvard, MIT, the University of California & more, have condemned "partisan attempts" being made to "silence dissenting analyses of the topic in question".
 
The whole episode is instructive about the way in which Israel advocacy groups seek to hypocritically & disingenuously shut down critical discussion.
 
First, opponents of an academic boycott of Israel present themselves as defenders of "academic freedom" - even though Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) is a campaign based on the institutional complicity of Israeli universities in occupation & war crimes.
 
Yet the same Israel lobbyists who incorrectly say BDS is an attack on academic freedom now want to shut down a conference simply because they don't like the ideas that will be discussed. Indeed, in a strikingly McCarthyite gesture, one anti-BDS umbrella group went through 56 conference speakers & labelled 45 of them "anti-Israel".
 
Second, the initial strategy - first in private, then in public - was to insinuate that the conference would somehow harm "community relations", a transparent attempt to tap into fears about "extremism" & antisemitism.
 
University officials were told by those seeking to censor that the conference was causing "great concern & distress" & would have "damaging consequences for student welfare & community relations on campus". Jewish Leadership Council chief executive Simon Johnson claimed that the conference would "have a detrimental impact on cohesiveness".
 
This kind of discourse is a growing trend. The Board of Deputies, for example, has cited "community cohesion" when opposing local councils who fly Palestinian flags in a gesture of support for an occupied people.
 
Third, the meaning of free speech is revised so as to mean a discussion that won't disturb Israel's die-hard defenders. Board of Deputies' vice-president Jonathan Arkush demanded that unless the university "re-structured" the conference, it "should be cancelled". This wasn't censorship, he said, "merely" asking for "a balanced debate".
 
The Board's "insistence" on so-called even-handedness is ironic, given that the organisation's outgoing treasurer has spoken of his inability to criticise Israel while in office. According to Laurence Brass, those who speak out "are subjected to very harsh & sometimes quite abusive personal criticism". Indeed, Arkush himself requested that Brass keep quiet.
 
The double standards are beyond parody. The Henry Jackson Society's Douglas Murray declared that the conference is not protected by free speech because it is "one-sided" - just days after penning an article that claimed "Britain is a country which now has trouble with free speech".
 
MP Caroline Nokes, meanwhile, described "academic freedom" as "sacrosanct" before, with a lack of self-awareness, immediately qualifying the inviolable principle in the case of this "apparently one-sided" conference.
 
"This isn't about academic freedom," said the Zionist Federation in their petition. They protest too much. But it is not only a matter of standing firm against an attack on academic freedom masquerading as concern about "bias" or "community relations".
 
It is also about the bigger picture, a continuation of efforts to silence critical debate & points of view, especially the Palestinian perspective, at a time when the voice of the expelled & occupied is being heard louder than ever. Efforts to censor are not a sign of strength, but of weakness.

Harper's niqab ban plays dangerous politics

A great opinion piece. Democracy & elections in the West seem to be always based on some kind of fear that "you better vote for me, otherwise apocalypse will come." Sort of an election campaign from the "uncivilized" & "barbaric" developing world.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpers-niqab-ban-plays-dangerous-politics/article23340295/

Zunera Ishaq hails from Pakistan where she was a high school teacher, lives in Mississauga, Ont., is 29 & has 3 kids. She came to Canada in 2008, passed her citizenship test 5 years later with flying colours, & is now ready to take the oath of citizenship. She’s been “imagining [this moment] for so long” because she’s anxious to be a full & active member of Canadian society. She & her husband chose Canada over other countries, she says, because “It is especially important to me to live in a country of religious freedoms since I am a devout Muslim.”

She’s already a volunteer at her eldest child’s school – a public school – & at a local women’s shelter, & once she becomes a citizen she is determined to have an active say in her country’s future. Her lawyers, Lorne Waldman and Naseem Mithoowani, have been impressed by her feistiness, independence & determination. Zunera Ishaq would be, from all accounts, a model Canadian.

Yet if it were up to the Prime Minister of Canada, Ms. Ishaq would have to settle for “imagining” her citizenship until hell freezes over. Why? Because she wears a niqab, which covers her entire face except her eyes. Ms. Ishaq says in a court affidavit that “I first started wearing the niqab when I was approximately 15 years old….After I had done research….I came to the conclusion that the niqab is mandatory to my faith.” While many Muslims disagree, each is free to make these decisions for herself.

It’s perfectly legal, harms no one, but is providing ammunition for Stephen Harper’s election campaign.

The story begins in 2011, when then-immigration minister Jason Kenney arbitrarily decreed that faces couldn’t be covered at citizenship oath-taking ceremonies. This was a direct blow to Ms. Ishaq. She is prepared to unveil herself in private to an official before taking the oath, but will not appear unveiled at the public ceremony. She approached the University of Toronto’s legal aid clinic who put her in touch with Lorne Waldman, one of Canada’s top-notch immigration lawyers. Mr. Waldman went to court to challenge the government & won. In his words, “The Court found that the policy of requiring a woman to remove her facial covering, where there is no question of identity or security, was illegal. The government is required to follow the law.”

Well, not so fast. Never mind the law. We’re talking about politics here. The government has decided to appeal the ruling against them, as just one of their battery of pre-election attacks against Muslims here & abroad. For what I believe are crassly political motives, they are deliberately inflaming Canadians against each others. Now we know what Conservatives mean by “Canadian values.”

Ms. Ishaq has been personally singled out for the national spotlight by no less than Stephen Harper himself. In fact the entire government of Canada seems obsessed by this one woman ... .

Quite simply, the Conservatives have decided that she is a useful weapon in their re-election campaign. By scapegoating her while introducing their much-criticized new anti-terrorism bill, they hope to convince frightened voters that the Conservatives are their best hope against dangers of all kinds. But in doing so, they are instead actually jeopardizing the country’s security. Stephen Harper & his minions are actually subverting the work of our security forces by alienating much of the Muslim community.

CSIS & the Mounties badly need the co-operation of the Muslim community to provide information about security risks among them. Yet even moderate Muslims – the large majority – are outraged by the way the government has, among other things, been picking on this one harmless Muslim woman, & in the process mocking the right of all Muslims to follow their religion in the way they want. Out of sheer political opportunism, Stephen Harper is undermining that community’s trust in official Canada while very likely estranging & radicalizing some Muslims, perhaps dangerously. How can he possibly not understand this?

Other Canadians are also guilty of this reckless behaviour, further angering all Muslims & in particular alienating younger ones. Far too many of these provocateurs are from Quebec, people with responsible positions as political, community & judicial leaders. They are not merely bigoted & intolerant. They are also divisive & destructive. They are playing into the hands of ISIS. As they surely must understand, they are sending an unmistakable message to every Muslim in the land: You are not one of us & we don’t trust any of you. And that message is being heard loud & clear by Muslims everywhere, with predictable repercussions.

Is it really too much to expect the Prime Minister of Canada to act responsibly at a time like this? It seems it is. Politics trumps all, even if it means turning other Canadians against Muslims & turning Muslims against official Canada. The consequences of both remain to be seen.

The weak & uninspiring case against the niqab

A great opinion piece on Muslim women & their rights to wear niqab / veil in Canada.

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... the case for banning the niqab from citizenship ceremonies is weak & uninspiring.
 
... there are various questions. On what basis can the niqab be said to be anti-women? Is the niqab somehow different in this regard from other religiously inspired forms of dress? A small survey of niqab-wearing Canadian women that was published in 2013 suggested various personal reasons for the choice. Is it not possible for a woman to wear a niqab without somehow submitting to oppression or some kind of anti-women sentiment?
 
... it is probably still for the Prime Minister to explain why popular sentiment should decide the legitimacy of a claim to religious freedom.
 
... what sort of necessity or principle is being claimed here?
 
As a practical matter, there would seem to be other options for either confirming someone’s identity (by asking a woman to unveil in private) or ensuring she has said the oath (by positioning a niqab-wearing woman within earshot of a citizenship judge). To expand on a hypothetical raised by Justice Boswell in his ruling, the government would seem to make special allowances for deaf-mute applicants, including the hiring of an interpreter.
 
On the topic of religious freedom & the law, Alberta v. Hutterian Brethren of Wilson Colony has also been invoked as evidence that “religious freedom is not absolute.” Fair enough. But that ruling also notes the presence of a “pressing & substantial goal.” What precisely would the pressing & substantial goal here be?
 
(I suspect the Supreme Court’s ruling on testifying in court while wearing a niqab might also be of relevance.)
 
In his interview with Maclean’s this week, Jason Kenney, the minister who directed the ban on the niqab, asserted the principle “that a public citizenship ceremony has to be performed publicly.” “Publicly” in this case would seem to be defined not simply as existing in public, but having to show one’s nose & mouth in public. (Fun question for your next dinner party: Is a woman in a niqab behaving publicly when she walks down the street?) The regulations for citizenship ceremonies do allow for a private swearing of oath in certain situations, “such as terminally ill candidates unable to travel or other urgent or extenuating circumstances,” I’m told by a government official. But regardless, we are being asked to put a philosophical or symbolic standard at the forefront.
 
If identity can otherwise be confirmed & the reciting of the oath can be otherwise heard, the value of unveiling during the communal recitation of the oath is entirely symbolic. And while there is something to be said for symbolism in the life of a nation, it is problematic, as with public opinion, to put that ahead of a claim to religious freedom.
 
It is on other symbolic grounds that the niqab is otherwise objected to: that it is a symbol of oppression, perhaps even wrong-headedly adopted. You are surely free to make that argument, but you are turning your own argument on its head if you then suggest that society should dictate a woman’s attire without a pressing reason for doing so.
 
That’s “not the way we do things here“? What does that even mean? We don’t make allowances for religious freedom? We don’t tolerate almost all choices of personal dress or undress? We reserve the right to readily impose our understanding of equality on a woman’s discretion? We set aside religious freedom for symbolic reasons?
 
It most certainly is the way we do things here insofar as we allow women, seemingly with some exceptions made for the purposes of confirming identity, to go about their time in this country wearing a niqab if they so desire.
 
If there are no practical or procedural grounds to justify demanding the niqab be lifted during the saying of the oath then a ban might be doomed in law. But even if it is entirely down to symbolic meaning & even if a desire for symbolic value shouldn’t be sufficient to limit religious freedom, we might still debate the symbolism.
 
If we are to officially accept the wearing of the niqab during the oath, as we seem to have done before Kenney decided we shouldn’t, what might that symbolize? We could say it symbolizes some public concession to oppression or segregation.

“To segregate one group of Canadians or allow them to hide their faces, to hide their identity from us precisely when they are joining our community is contrary to Canada’s proud commitment to openness and to social cohesion,” Kenney said 3 years ago. But in this case that openness & cohesion would impose a limit on religious freedom, & a seemingly unnecessary one at that.
 
We could then say that allowing the niqab at the moment of the oath demonstrates tolerance & freedom—a willingness to accept that in this country you are basically free to dress & express yourself as you see fit so long as it does not threaten the general good or inherent rights of others.

“Freedom in a broad sense embraces both the absence of coercion & constraint, & the right to manifest beliefs & practices,” Justice Brian Dickson once wrote. “Freedom means that, subject to such limitations as are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights & freedoms of others, no one is to be forced to act in a way contrary to his beliefs or his conscience.”

We could say that the wearing of the niqab when an individual chooses to become a citizen of Canada does not threaten the safety, order, health or morals of this country. That so long as those things are maintained, we should make some attempt to accommodate each other. That we are secure enough to accept that some might choose to wear it. That we are stronger not for demanding the niqab’s removal, but for accepting that we must allow someone the choice to wear it.

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/what-principle-would-banning-the-niqab-uphold/

Quebec judge who demanded hijab removal needs a Charter lesson

On Thursday, Quebec Judge Eliana Marengo turned away a single mother coming to court trying to get back her impounded car. She wasn’t even driving the car when it was impounded. She had done nothing wrong. Nothing, that is, except wear the same religious head scarf she had worn for years, including when she swore her Oath of Allegiance to Canada.
 
Every way you look at this issue, the Quebec judge was just plain wrong.
 
First, let’s talk about the law. The Supreme Court of Canada has already decided the issue, dead against what this judge did. Freedom of religion is a Charter right. According to the Charter, religious freedoms can be limited only if the limits are both reasonable, & demonstrably justifiable. So what sort of limits on religious freedoms are reasonable & demonstrably justifiable?
 
How does wearing a head scarf similarly interfere with the proper functioning of the courts? Why is the head scarf a problem? Courts listen to people & make decisions based on what they hear. Does a head scarf interfere with a court’s ability to hear a person, understand them, & make a decision based on what they say? Of course not. So to return to the legal test, violating someone’s religious freedom by forcing them to remove a piece of religious head gear before they testify in court is neither reasonable nor demonstrably justifiable, & never could be. By the way, Sikhs have been wearing turbans in court for years, & Jews have been wearing yarmulkes. The justice system accommodates them all just fine. Do all those fine folks now have to partially disrobe as well? What about that terrible clerical collar? And while you’re at it, why not insist that all religious facial hair be shaved? It’s hard to detect a smirk or a frown behind a thicket of dense fur.
 
The judge offered 2 explanations for her position. Both are bogus. She said non-religious persons remove hats & sunglasses. So, she argues, she is just treating the person with the religious head scarf the same as everyone else. This is patently absurd. Does the judge really think religious apparel is no different than sunglasses & baseball caps? If she really thinks that, she does not know the first thing about religious beliefs & practices, & the depth & meaning they bring to many peoples’ lives. As a lawyer I’ve had to read the Charter once or twice, & I’ve never found the slightest reference to freedom of shades & fedoras. But I did find freedom of religion, right up front, in s.2(a). So the comparison argument is a non-starter.
 
The judge also said that courtrooms are a secular place, & must remain so. At least this argument has the tiny but questionable virtue of being only half-baked. Courtrooms are secular in that the law they apply can have no entrenched advantages for any one religious group. But that is not the issue here. The issue here is access to justice. Courtrooms dispense justice, & justice must be equally accessible for everyone, regardless of what, if any, religious beliefs they hold, & how they practise (or not) those religious beliefs. We can no more exclude from a courtroom a hijab-wearing woman seeking justice than we could exclude from a hospital emergency room a hijab-wearing woman with serious injuries seeking treatment. Remember that ancient Roman goddess Justitia with the scales in her hand? ... she has worn a blindfold because she welcomes everyone to court, & judges people based on the evidence, not on skin colour, gender, clothing, or religion.
 
No doubt the judge in question is a committed secularist. And I for one would defend vigorously her personal freedom to hold those views whether I agree with them or not. But in doing what she did in her capacity as a judge, she is, ironically for a secularist, no better than the fundamentalist religious dogmatists who try to exclude those with different beliefs from fully participating in, & benefiting from, essential social institutions.
 
What the judge did was profoundly un-Canadian. And profoundly wrong.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/judge-who-demanded-hijab-removal-needs-a-charter-lesson/article23227798/

 

Canadian judge tells Muslim woman to remove her headscarf

Thanks to the tone being set by our dear Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, life for practicing Muslims keep getting harder & harder in Canada. Islamophobia is on the rise. People think hijabs & veils are an affront to Canadian values & must not be worn in Canada. Violence & harassment are on the rise in Canada against Canadian women & men. Discrimination was & keep increasing against Muslims; be it be in the jobs, healthcare, education ... & now in the courts, too.

Thankfully, French-like ban on hijabs etc. hasn't become a law, yet, but the way Islamophobia is increasing across the developed world, it can be anticipated soon. But then, again, sometimes, these bans & religious symbols work in favour of Islam. I hope it's the latter case.
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A Muslim woman was reportedly told to remove her headscarf before a Canadian judge would hear her case.

 

Judge Eliana Marengo was said to have told Rania El-Alloul that the courtroom in Montreal is a secular place & she was not suitably dressed.

 

'Hats & sunglasses for example, are not allowed. And I don't see why scarves on the head would be either,' it was claimed she said in a recording of proceedings, according to CBC News.

 

After the hearing she was said to have felt scared & 'not Canadian anymore,' CBC reported.

 

Her case was said to have been adjourned indefinitely.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2971856/Canadian-judge-tells-Muslim-woman-not-hear-case-removes-headscarf.html

Criminal Minds, S1E5 (quote)

2 possible translations of it (at least what I can come up with):
 
1. Empathy
 
2. When a state or law enforcement authority hurts a good man (e.g. he/she is speaking out against some kind of injustice done by the state) by dragging him through judicial system or make harsh laws against individual freedoms, every other good person, who thinks like him/her, also suffers along with him/her.
 
Of course, according to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), every true believer has to feel the pain of his/her brothers & sisters in Islam, wherever they are, in this world.

 

Lee Kuan Yew gave Singapore independence, & world a bad idea

For about 6 months in 2014, Pakistanis kept themselves on the road, in the hopes of a democratic government. And Singaporeans, on the other hand, are crying at the loss of their dictator. Perhaps, a benevolent dictator is what we all need.
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His [Lee Kuan Yew] main contribution was to legitimize the idea that you can have progress without democracy, at least the kind with a robust opposition, critical press & changes of government. Mr. Lee was prime minister of his city-state for 31 straight years, brooking little dissent. Their People’s Action Party has held power since 1959.

“The exuberance of democracy leads to undisciplined & disorderly conditions which are inimical to development,” the senior Lee once said.
 
Strongmen around the world applauded. Gulf State sheiks celebrated him. Russia’s Vladimir Putin was a fan. A succession of Chinese leaders sought his advice. If he could raise his country to riches without all the fuss & bother of democratic politics, why couldn’t they?
 
Even Western democracies sometimes wondered if he might have a point when he said that rampant individualism & cranky special-interest politics were holding them back.
 
The kind of leader that Mr. Lee personified – stern, fatherly, morally upright, far-seeing, a good shepherd to his flock – has enormous appeal even in a democratic age. If such a leader can deliver the goods, many would say, well, then, who cares about a free press or a critical opposition?
 
The trouble is that the world produces very few such leaders. Mr. Lee was all but unique, an incorruptible strongman who really did put country above personal gain. The “Singapore model” is a direct product of his personality. It is hard to think of a place that bears its leader’s imprint so clearly.
 
A brilliant, London-educated lawyer, Mr. Lee led Singapore to independence & immediately set about remaking it in his own image: tough, disciplined, pragmatic, self-reliant.
 
Mr. Lee opened the country to foreign trade & investment but held a choke hold on politics, keeping the media tamed & the tiny opposition cowed. There is no denying it: the formula worked. Singapore averaged 7% annual growth for decades, eventually surpassing its old overlord, Britain, in per capita income.
 
Singapore is hardly a totalitarian state ... Singapore is a billboard for what is often called soft authoritarianism.
 
Without the check of opposition, the scrutiny of a free media & the threat of being tossed out by the voters, most leaders descend along the familiar path to corruption & brutality. That Mr. Lee did not was a function of his character, not of the virtues of the Singapore model.
 
What calls itself benevolent dictatorship is usually a bust. China’s collective leadership has raised living standards, but at the price of enormous corruption & environmental destruction. Mr. Putin’s bare-chested rule is curdling into aggressive nationalism.
 
Mr. Lee’s government was the exception to the rule. His success, sad to say, is probably not transferable. He worked on a small canvas: an island nation of 5.5 million about the size of Toronto.
 
For better models of development, look to other Asian success stories. Taiwan & South Korea have graduated from authoritarianism to full-throated democracy without sacrificing any of their economic dynamism.
 
So praise Lee Kuan Yew, by all means. ... But don’t pretend he is a model. Strongman government without true democratic accountability usually ends in failure.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/lee-kuan-yew-gave-singapore-independence-and-the-world-a-bad-idea/article23610260/

Picking sides in the fight for France

But some do follow the call. Often it’s people who feel some affinity, Muslims born or converted, often with, at first, only a shaky grasp of the Quran’s content.
 
Economic conditions may also have some effect. Long-term unemployment has been high for a generation in France, has increased sharply since 2009, & hits hardest in the largely Muslim “zones urbaines sensibles” (ZUS), hundreds of problem neighbourhoods targeted for special government intervention. Successive studies ...of these ZUS neighbourhoods show that their populations are shrinking only very slowly, while economic conditions rapidly deteriorate. It’s hard to escape the feeling, living in these desolate neighbourhoods on the outskirts of big cities, that France has no interest in seeing you get out.

 
One 2011 survey of ZUS residents found that almost 90% of descendants of immigrants living there agreed with the statement, “I feel French.” But when the question was whether they were perceived as French, the number fell to 67%. Among descendants of Moroccan & Tunisian immigrants the number shrinks to 40%. It’s a big problem when many thousands of a country’s most economically vulnerable citizens feel their affection for France is unrequited.
 
Of course, money doesn’t explain everything. “The socio-economic correlation is valid for many,” Amellal said, “but it has its limits.”

What binds them loosely together is a blanket rejection of everything modern societies seem to value. Amellal calls them “electrons that become free, that completely break with society. It’s not hate, it’s a rejection of everything that makes the system: elites, politics, but also values, the Republic, secularism. Of course, Charlie Hebdo was an extraordinary symbol of all of that. Extraordinary.”

The Muslims of France are there. They have spent their lives in France, learned its history & its pop culture, & in most cases want nothing more than to participate in France’s still sorely unrealized potential.
 
The polarizing effect of the attacks isn’t over. The murders forced everyone in France to pick a side. Most—not all but most—French Muslims are happy & eager to pick freedom’s side. It would be tragic if nobody in power dared listen to them.

http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/picking-sides-in-the-fight-for-france/

 

Aldous Huxley on Modern Government

Cloud Atlas (Quote # 5)

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2014: A degrading year for women

A good column from Dec 2014. This column is great for me to blog on the popular topic of "equal pay", as Patricia Arquette has again put the spotlight on it in her Oscars' award acceptance speech, but that one saved for another time (actually, this one also mentions this hot topic).
Very hard to choose excerpts from this column to put it here:
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Has there ever been a more depressing year for feminism than 2014?

... it seemed the world’s most famous women - whose every move is avidly followed by millions of impressionable girls on social media - were busy throwing buckets of ice over themselves or posting ‘brave’ pictures without any make-up on.
Ostensibly, this was for charity, but it was really to show off how much better they look in a wet T-shirt or without cosmetics than the rest of us.
 
It was also the year when every B-list celebrity, from Kelly Osbourne to Kelly Brook, started taking risqué pictures of their cleavage or bottoms & posting them on Instagram & Twitter, with legions of fans inevitably following suit.
Meanwhile, a cartload of over-paid, under-fed & perma-tanned supermodels rolled into town, courtesy of lingerie store Victoria’s Secret, & proceeded to prance around semi-naked... .
 
Not since the slave markets of Ancient Rome have women been judged so blatantly by their appearance, analysed so openly as little more than a collection of body parts. And the worst part is this: the sisters are doing it to themselves.
 
For women - & women alone - are responsible for this rampant self-objectification. This time, we really cannot blame the patriarchy.
 
No one is forcing young women to have their breasts enhanced (one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures of 2014) or to leave the house trussed up like living, breathing blow-up dolls.
 
From the preoccupation with ‘thigh gaps’ (that faintly obscene obsession of super-skinny models) to a seeming inability to pose for a photo without pouting like a demented trout, all too many women seemed to engage in ever more vacuous vanities. Eyelashes were so over-the-top that girls were straining to see past the end of their noses & cleavages had more suspension than the Severn Bridge.
 
So there you have it. Decades of feminism & it seems the best use we can find for equal pay is to spend it on buying ourselves a body like Barbie’s & a wardrobe like Katie Price’s. Was it really for this that Emily Davison fell under the King’s horse?
 
And if all of this is confusing for a woman like me, who thought the whole point of equality was that I could at last be judged on my ability to converse fluently on foreign policy, not how I look in a bikini, imagine how unfathomable it must be for the poor male of the species.
 
If I could wish for anything in 2015, it’s for this insanity to stop. For women to stop making such fools of themselves, to rediscover some dignity. Above all to stop frittering away the freedoms so hard won by our predecessors & that, let’s not forget, are still denied to many.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2891936/Oh-degrading-year-women-writes-SARAH-VINE.html