How do we protect the lives and rights of all Canadians?
The issues of women wearing the niqab at citizenship ceremonies became a heated issue in the recent federal election. Some critics say that the niqab is a symbol of female oppression and has nothing to do with Islam. Some of the women who want to publicly wear the niqab, such as Zunera Ishaq and Aysha Luqman-Pandor, say that they choose to wear the niqab as a personal expression of their identity and devotion to the Muslim faith.
The niqab debate is symptomatic of a larger issue in Canada, namely how to respond to the terrorist threat while respecting the rights and freedoms of those Muslims who only want to live in peace.
Many people have advocated striking back against ISIS in the Middle East, and advocated for tougher security measures such as Bill C-51, to protect Canadians from terrorists. Many of these people also support banning the niqab at public citizenship ceremonies. The horrifying attacks by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and Martin Couture-Rouleau illustrate the danger that terrorists pose.
But a Macleans’ magazine article about Zehaf-Bibeau also mentioned the Burnaby, B.C. mosque he worshipped at. Zehaf-Bibeau had a falling-out with the Muslims who ran the mosque, because they actively tried to reach out to other Canadians and provide a friendly space where people could learn more about Islam. Groups like these are working actively to help their fellow Muslims integrate into Canada.
Unfortunately, I haven’t heard much from advocates of Bill C-51 and attacks against ISIS on what the rest of us could do to support these groups. Security is important, but what can we do to better ensure that new arrivals’ values mesh with our own, so that they can exercise their religious freedoms while also respecting the rights of others? Simply attacking Islam as a whole will only empower the bigots who hate people of Middle Easterners descent and Muslim faith to start attacking them, which is just as bad. How do we protect Muslims and other Canadians at the same time?
That’s one problem, but there’s also the problem of spousal abuse and repression that does occur in some communities, including Muslim ones, justified by religion. Aside from the Zehaf-Bibeau and Couture-Rouleau attacks in Canada and the ghastly Charlie Hebdo murders in France, there were also reports of “Sharia patrols” in East London in 2013–2014 where groups of young Muslim men harassed passers-by for supposedly violating Islamic principles.
Unfortunately, I haven’t heard much from critics of Bill C-51 and attacks against ISIS on how to respond to these threats. How do we maintain our traditional values, while respecting the religious rights of all Canadians? How do we confront repression in Muslim and other communities, and counter potential attacks?
The issue has two sides-we need to ensure that the rights of new Canadians are respected, and that they can become full participants in society, but we also need to keep people safe and strike back against terrorism.
How, exactly, do we maintain that balance between the liberties and securities of all Canadians, whatever their faith?
This article was originally written in October 2015 to comment on the issue of Muslim people wearing niqabs at citizenship ceremonies in Canada.
This article was originally written in the St. Albert Gazette on October 24, 2015. It does not appear to be available on the Gazette website.