Excellent letter...
article from the Calgary Herald (from an email), no publication date provided.
"Time to
Change Tune on Official Multiculturalism
by Licia
Corbella, Calgary
Herald -
About one
dozen families who recently immigrated to Canada are
demanding
that the Louis Riel School Division in Winnipeg
excuse their
children
from music and co-ed physical education programs for religious
reasons.
The families believe music is un-Islamic ~ just like the
Taliban
believe and then imposed on the entire population of
Afghanistan and that physical education
classes should be segregated
by gender
even in the elementary years.
The
school division is facing the music in a typically Canadian way -
that is,
bending itself into a trombone to try to accommodate these
demands,
even though in Manitoba,
and indeed the rest of the country,
music and
phys-ed are compulsory parts of the curriculum. Officials say
they may
try to have the Muslim children do a writing project on music
to
satisfy the curriculum's requirements. The school officials have
apparently
consulted the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, and they
have also
spoken to a member of the Islamic community suggested by
those
very same Muslim parents. In any event, the school district is
trying to
find a way to adapt the curriculum to fit the wishes of these
families,
rather than these families adapting to fit into the school
and
Canadian culture.
Mahfooz
Kanwar, a member of the Muslim Canadian Congress, says he has a
better
idea. "I'd tell them, this is Canada,
and in Canada,
we teach
music and
physical education in our schools. If you don't like it,
leave. If
you want to live under sharia law, go back to the hellhole
country
you came from or go to another hellhole country that lives
under
sharia law," said Kanwar, who is a professor emeritus of
sociology
at Mount Royal University
in Calgary.
That
might be putting things a little more forcefully than most of us
would be
comfortable with, but Kanwar says he is tired of hearing about
such
out-of-tune demands from newcomers to our country.
"Immigrants
to Canada should adjust to Canada, not the
other way
around,"
he argues. If they did not like these things in Canada, why
did they
not go somewhere else? If they want Canada to be like their
homeland
why don't they go home?
Kanwar,
who immigrated to Canada
from Pakistan via England and
then the
United States in 1966, says he used to buy into
the "mosaic, official
multiculturalism"
(nonsense). He makes it clear, that like most
Canadians,
he is pleased and enjoys that Canada
has citizens literally
from
every country and corner in the world, as it has enriched this
country
immensely. But it's official multiculturalism - the state
policy
"that entrenches the lie" that all cultures and beliefs are of
equal
value and of equal validity in Canada
that he objects to.
"The
fact is, Canada
has an enviable culture based on Judeo-Christian
values -
not Muslim values - with British and French rule of law and in
all of
the other places in the world. We are heading down a dangerous
path if
we allow the idea of sharia law a place in Canada. It does not.
It is
completely incompatible with the idea and reality of Canada,"
says
Kanwar, who in the 1970s was the founder and president of the
Pakistan-Canada
Association and a big fan of official multiculturalism.
Kanwar
says his views changed when he started listening to the people
who
joined his group. They badmouthed Canada, weren't interested in
knowing
Canadians or even in learning one of our official languages.
They
created cultural ghettos and the Canadian government even helped
fund
it.
"One
day it dawned on me that the reason all of us wanted to move here
was going
to disappear if we didn't start defending Canada and
itsfundamental
values." That's when Kanwar started speaking out against
the
dangers of official multiculturalism. He has been doing so for
decades.
So, it's no surprise that Kanwar is delighted with the recent
speech
British Prime Minister David Cameron delivered to the 47th
Munich Security Conference on Feb.
5.
"Under
the doctrine of state multiculturalism," said Cameron, "we have
failed to
provide a vision of society to which they feel they want
tobelong.
We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving
in ways
that run counter to our values. So when a white person holds
objectionable
views - racism, for example - we rightly condemn them..
But when
equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone
who isn't
white, we've been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to
stand up
to them.
This
hands-off tolerance," said Cameron, "has only served to
reinforce
the sense
that not enough is shared. All this leaves some young Muslims
feeling
rootless and ... can lead them to this extremist ideology."
Kanwar
actually credits German Chancellor Angela Merkel for being among
the first
of the world's democratic leaders to take the courageous step
in
October to say that official multiculturalism had "failed
totally.."
It
appears leaders are getting bolder. During an interview with TFI
channel
on Feb. 10, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared: "We have
been too
concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving
and not
enough about the identity of the country that was receiving
him."
Cameron ended his speech by saying: "At
stake are
not just lives, it's our way of life.That's why this is
achallenge
we cannot avoid - and one we must meet."
That
democratically elected leaders are at long last starting to sing a
different
tune on official multiculturalism is sweet music to Kanwar.
Here's
hoping those poor kids in Winnipeg
will get to hear some of it."
"Definitely food for thought," sighs Kia.
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