{"id":4382,"date":"2020-05-16T22:49:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-17T01:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/?p=4382"},"modified":"2020-05-17T00:54:16","modified_gmt":"2020-05-17T03:54:16","slug":"stupid-times-for-journalism-or-activism-how-can-we-amalgamate-a-face-mask-with-a-niqab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/2020\/05\/16\/stupid-times-for-journalism-or-activism-how-can-we-amalgamate-a-face-mask-with-a-niqab\/","title":{"rendered":"Stupid times for journalism\u2026 or activism: How can we amalgamate a face mask with a niqab?!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Here are all the articles that Bambi was able to find\non the topic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/canada\/2020\/05\/16\/as-quebecers-cover-faces-for-covid-19-some-hope-for-tolerance-of-religious-garb.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.opendemocracy.net\/en\/global-extremes\/there-difference-between-niqab-and-face-mask\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/france-face-masks-compulsory-burqas-niqabs-banned-criticism-muslims-2020-5<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom line of all these articles is to criticize,\nanother time, the province of Qu\u00e9bec for its secular law\u2026 Instead of accepting:\n(1) Bill 21, which is a law now; (2) that there are different historico-cultural\napproaches to conceiving secularism; and (3) that Qu\u00e9bec spent 10 years\ndebating reasonable accommodations to reach this consensus. Yes, Qu\u00e9bec chose massively\nto vote its current government, which succeeded in passing the law on\nsecularism (which is even more moderate than the secularism approach of France).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a reminder, the bill states that no public servant in a position of authority can wear a religious symbol (e.g., the President and Vice-Presidents of the National Assembly, administrative justices of the peace, special clerks, clerks, deputy clerks, sheriffs and deputy sheriffs, clerks and deputy clerks respecting municipal courts, and bankruptcy registrars, , the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions, and persons who exercise the function of lawyer, notary or criminal and penal prosecuting attorney and who are under the authority of a government department, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions, the National Assembly, principals, vice principals and teachers of educational institutions under the jurisdiction of a school board, etc..). In addition, for security reasons, Bill 21 also applies to \u201cpersons who present themselves to receive a service from a staff member of a public body must have their face uncovered where doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Bambi has posted\nextensively on Bill 21 (please see below if you are interested).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of note, the Toronto Star<\/em> article cited above\nreports comments by Dr. Jeffrey Reitz, director of the ethnic, immigration and\npluralism studies program at the University of Toronto\u2019s Munk School of Global\nAffairs and Public Policy. According to Dr. Reitz, \u201cThe comparison between\nQuebec\u2019s secularism law and the COVID-19 mask directives is clear\u2026 But people\nhave largely avoided connecting the two issues because while medical masks and\nreligious face coverings may be similar in practice, they symbolize different\nthings.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As per this article, Dr. Reitz added that COVID-19\nmasks make citizens feel secure\u2026 \u201cthey\u2019re being protected from possible\ndisease\u2026 there are very strong stereotypes that people have of Muslim women\nwearing traditional clothing<\/em>\u2026\u201d. The latter sentence is completed by the author\nof the article, Ms. Jillian Kestler-D\u2019Amours\n(a woman!) with the following words \u201csuch as face coverings\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Reitz is cited saying the following as well: \u201cThat\nmainstream perception is actually based on no facts at all, but just on these\nfears and stereotypes\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To score her point further, Ms. Kestler D\u2019Amours also\ninterviewed a woman who used to wear a burqa (removing it to find a job, it\nseems). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bambi does not know if she should laugh or cry at\nthe absurdity of this piece of so-called article and the comments of the interviewees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that the picture chosen to illustrate the topic is a woman wearing a burqa! Yes, a burqa like the one shown herein:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The picture taken from the Toronto Star<\/em> article<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The burqa is an extreme version of a head cover. In MANY Muslim countries, this outfit is imposed on women and even on teenage girls (when they reach puberty) and sometimes on even much younger kids, as we can observe around us in Canada. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some women (18+) wearing the burqa could have escaped their\ncountries of birth to come to a more secular society like Qu\u00e9bec. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tragically but luckily not too many of these women may be killed, in the name of \u201chonour killing\u201d, if they deviate from rigorously conservative social traditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, does anyone remember the tragedy of the Shafia\nfamily? Bambi has read the book describing this family\u2019s sad story (https:\/\/torontosun.com\/opinion\/editorials\/editorial-no-mercy-for-honour-killings<\/a>)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, a recent article has been published in\nreaction to the above papers, namely by Mr. Mathieu-Bock (Journal de Montr\u00e9al<\/em>)\nwho knows both the French and French-Canadian cultures well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/translate.google.ca\/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_m&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https:\/\/www.journaldemontreal.com\/2020\/05\/14\/le-masque-nest-pas-le-niqab<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the title of his article, Mr. Bock-C\u00f4t\u00e9 reminded us\nthat \u201ca mask is not a niqab<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To all those so-called progressive journalists (academicians and even politicians, wearing a headscarf in their kind messages of Ramadan wishes, as you can see below), Bambi would like to say the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extremists, namely Islamists who are not the vast majority of Muslims luckily, use our Canadian kindness\/tolerance (i.e., multicultural approach) to push their radical agenda further. This may be facilitated by the fact that their religion, and surely its interpretation, does not differentiate between the private and public spheres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, surely without wanting to, these intellectuals (or social justice warriors or so-called progressive advocates, etc.) may be, in the short and especially long term, serving Islamists, rather than women whom they think they are advocating for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you do not believe Bambi about such risk, look to what\nhappened in the Iranian revolution between those well-meaning intellectuals\n(likely on the left side too, like our society). Well, the Islamists pushed\nthem aside and took over. Look at a recent example of how Iran is treating a\nfemale researcher, with double citizenship from Iran and France. She has been thrown\nin jail for 5 years \u2639:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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