Ah, There's The Rub
I was going to post an entry, a pokey bit of philosophizing, on all this incoherent turmoil regarding Muslim women and the veil (you know, the veil that is supposed to represent the subjugation of Muslim women by Muslim men that has Canada's mostly white male Christian Parliament in a right royal flipflap):
But then I came across this:
InOutInOutInOutElectionAdvertising
And I realized, "Oh. Okay. Stephen Harper's New Conservative Government of Canada is going into attack mode at Marc Maynard:
Because of that election advertising stuff.
And then, of course, I stumbled across this and completely lost my train of thought:
Oh, who am I kidding? Why let Stephen Harper's New Conservative Government's manipulation of Elections Canada:
Get in the way of a bit of PhiloSooey on the nature of freedom, multiculturalism, and tolerance.
I'll be brief. Eventually.
As I was frying myself up some scrambled free range eggs (I don't bother with organic - free range is good enough - and half the price) to have on some "must eat today" rye toast, it hit me: Muslims are arriving to our shores at a time when individual rights and freedoms are at a peak in this country - and, like all good and longstanding Canadians, they are exercising their rights - unilaterally - and without waiting for those same good longstanding Canadians to grant them leave to do so. THAT is why so many "born and raised here for a handful of generations" Canadians are reacting so... intolerantly to the customs of Muslim newcomers. It's not so much the Islamicismness (if that even is a word.... yet...) of the newcomers as it is the flaunting of it.
Anyway, I figure all this intolerance getting so much media play these days (and that's what it is when you cannot abide an individual's choice of dress, food, prayer - where they choose to wash their feet, perhaps - it's intolerance) is a result of "back in my day" Canadians feeling like Muslims are benefitting from hard won rights and freedoms fought for by generations of Canadians (none of them involved in this debate, by the way) - just by coming here - and then, instead of saying, "Wow. It's so free here" and smiling joyously through the Christmas season, they go that one step further and say, "I think I'll exercise my rights and wash my feet in the sink before going for a good ol' country prayer to Allah giving thanks for making Canada so free".
To me (a secular humanist feminist on the left who would happily put a sign over the sink saying, "Don't thank our socially and politically progressive forbears - they did it for all of us"), that's a good thing because it means the system is working, that we are free as individuals to exercise our rights, that rights are for everybody, not just a few who were here before the many who will come here. And while previous generations of newcomers may have felt keeping a low profile, adapting to the ways of the majority, keeping their cultural differences under wraps - was the way to adapt, newcomers now adapt right away by feeling feel free to flaunt their culture. I mean, people SHOULD feel free to flaunt - or they're not really free - are they?
Naturally, of course, something's gotta give to make room for all this freedom and what it is, Dear Reader, is that longstanding Canadian Judeo-Christian "WASP" belief that, since we jumpstarted this country's Judeo-Christianism - we get first dibs on flaunting. Forever and ever. Amen.
Well, you either have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and a Multicultural society and social progress and freedom of expression - or you have whever many of our newcomers are from. So yeah, they're taking advantage of our free country by becoming us while staying them - right off the bat. And it's people who think there should be a time delay before newcomers tell us who they used to be in hopes that maybe they'll just adapt in the meantime and start celebrating Christmas like we do in our little houses on the prairie, instead of washing their feet in the sink and praying to Allah, that will have to adapt.
Because that's who we are now - whoever gets in. We're a free people with individual rights and freedoms who can't impose one culture over another just because it happened to get here first because some other free person is going to say, "Hey - I'm not telling you YOU have to wash your feet in the sink and pray to Allah - now am I? So what's your beef? That I'm doing it? Tough nuts, fellow citizen."
