The Agenda Goes Multicultural On Its Own Ass
So, I was reading the Globe & Mail this evening when my companion turned on The Agenda.
Well, either/or, I thought - and kept one eye on the newspaper and one ear on the TV.
As I was reading about Ezra Levant's Western Standard going tits up because apparently nobody realized you can't run a business on ideological whimsy, I became aware of a rather intense exchange that was going on between a couple of panel members on The Agenda. The topic was Multiculturalism and, while the three white guys all seemed to think we were in pretty good shape in terms of integration versus diversity, global village versus ethnic enclaves, vague identity versus distinct societies - there were a couple of Muslim women who seemed to differ.
With each other. Big time. Which pretty much proves the point the three white guys were making, in a way. Afterall, what do they know about the struggle by some women within the Muslim community to ensure that their rights as Canadian women aren't at risk of being subverted by others within the Muslim community? They're three white guys, well established, right of center (to my socialist female mind, anyway), all doing well - multiculturalism or no multiculturalism.
What's the problem?
So, enough about them (gawd, to be a man - how free and easy it must be) - what the what was up with these two women? Well, in a nutshell, one - the President of the Canadian Muslim Association (a woman - who knew?), and the other... not the President of the Canadian Muslim Association - seemed to have a difference of opinion as to how Canadian versus how Muslim some segments of the Muslim population here in Canada are and what effect this is having on the more Muslim Canadian Canadian Muslim women in Canada.
Interesting. And awkward. Man, poor Steve Paikin, caught in the middle of a Muslim cat fight - on TVO! He managed to keep the President of the CMA from jumping up out of her seat and ripping off the other woman's hijab to reveal a bomb - but barely. Not that I blame her. I'd feel a bit (a lot?) like that being on a TVO panel with a nun, too. Especially if she was being all reasonable and articulate and pretending not to want to grab all my rights away and give them to the Pope to add to his vault of women's denied rights. It's a normal, however visceral, reaction to women who insist on living their lives within patriarchal constructs. I get it - totally. But I also feel it's their right to go ahead and live that life if they want to - just don't start angling for legislation demanding that I do, too.
You know, the way REAL Women does. Do? And I didn't get the sense that this other Muslim woman was up to anything of the sort - which says a lot about the Muslim community we're all so fearful of, if you ask me. In fact, if that other woman had soft pedalled whatever she was selling any softer, you'd hardly have noticed she was wearing a hijab.
Ahem.
Anyway, I absolutely empathize with the President of the CMA because it's incredibly annoying to me when women resist freedom from patriarchy, reproductive choice, pay equity - all those good things feminists have fought and won for Canadian women. But this woman really didn't seem to be doing that in any way that would affect the rights of me and other women who believe in the same things I do. I'm not even sure she was resisting them for herself...
Again - not like REAL Women does. Do? By constantly lobbying their new best friend, Stephen Harper and his New Conservative Government of Canada, for legislative changes restricting human rights and freedoms here in Canada.
Which, of course, affects ALL of us, but especially women. As usual, white guys really don't have to worry THAT much about, well, anything.
And I hate to sound like a broken record, but the President of the CMA really needs to know - for her own peace of mind, or not - that, well, enough about her and her fellow Canadian Muslims. Ontario funds an entire religious institution to provide education and healthcare that, well, believes women have a certain role in society - a role defined by The Vatican - and which has enormous legislative and social power and that I, as a citizen, have no choice but to pay for - even though it discriminates against me as a person.
It was quite heartening, really, to know that women from the multicultural side of Canadian diversity (and believe me - if those pie charts they were showing on The Agenda are any indication - Canada's not exactly a melting pot outside of Toronto and it's as white as snow in Quebec) - are having an easier slog through the same old same old - with each other - than we in the fourth generation WASP community are having with our more traditional gals. Really. I mean it. I'm envious.
Take our REAL Women.
Please.
Postscript:
Best line of the night went to Avvy Go when asked if she was married and had children and whether she'd care if they inter-married or not: "I don't believe in marriage" - followed by laughter and a plug for more attention to the basics of equality - like gay marriage. And so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc. Gawd. Socialists, eh? What would TV panels be without them?
