Niqab or no Niqab...! By: Mohamed S. Kamel

Niqab or no Niqab...!

By: Mohamed S. Kamel*

Montreal, March 28, 2010

Lately and after weeks of struggle with the Niqab issue, Quebec government introduced Bill 94, a bill that if it passes will be a law that is one of its kind. This bill is meant to force everyone to uncover his/her face when seeking any service from governmental agencies and deny a work opportunity to any face covered individual.

I was hesitating for a long time to address this issue.  After the introduction of this bill, and after I have been chased by many individuals, associations and media outlets, I found that I cannot run from it any more, especially after we got this wide spread nonsense feedback from various parties.      

Why was I hesitating? Because we are not ready yet to face ourselves and to come clean about its reality. We are not practicing all that we preach.

Do we really understand what we are doing and where we are going? It is very easy to stand up for individual rights and we should do so in every occasion, but it is not easy to stand up for the community and society’s rights to build the future we are looking for.

  

Does anyone know about a Niqabi who applied for a position in the government? Does anyone argue that a person could not be served while his/her face is covered?

This will bring us to two issues: why this law has been introduced and what will be the consequences of passing the law and enforcing it?

                  

Quebec government, similar to any government, is looking for its long term survival, internally and within the public. Internally because some of the party’s members are double talkers and even hate mongers. Within the public, they try to not give their rival a chance to use this opportunity to strengthen their position.

But why now?

It has been two years since Bouchard-Taylor presented their report and recommendations to the government; it was the same government that established this commission during election period.   

Since then, there was no provocative issue that would divide Quebec’s society into Muslims and non-Muslims.  To the contrary and generally speaking, Muslims started to feel more welcomed within the society and the general public is more accepting towards the reality that Muslims are part of the society.

    

That makes Islamophobics and hate mongers not happy, and their wish came jointly with the ignorant Quebecers of Muslims and non-Muslims.

When the Niqabi woman was expelled from the school, wise people advised her not to go to the human rights commission, because by doing so she is provoking the question of reasonable accommodation in the wrong direction, and in a time where issues are calm and we do not have to open this can of worms again.

Some foreigners did not understand that and supported her claim to the commission and ran to the media defending her position.  Yes, they are foreigners, because they don’t understand the society’s dynamics and they are foreigners to even the basic understanding of their community and the entire society’s wellbeing.

These foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims, tried to link the Niqab issue to the Hijab one.  Some of them said all religious symbols must go, and others called it a war against religious rights.

Reality is, both are wrong. The Niqab issue should not be treated as a question of religious rights because it has been addressed from the communication and personal identification side. When in fact the Hijab issue cannot be addressed at the same level and it has nothing to do with these concerns.   

   

If some are trying to use this occasion to impose their new religion, the firm or closed minded secularism “laïcité ferme”, we say no to them.  Our society agreed and accepted the open secularism “laïcité ouverte” that promotes mutual acceptance and the living together concept.

The open secularism is defining the separation between the state and the church in a very clear term.  It clearly refuses that the state represents a religion, but defends individuals’ rights to practice and live by their religious believes.

  

When are we going to be really part of the society and part of Quebec’s future? This will not be materialized by talk, but by actions. This will not happen unless we stop looking on our door steps and start looking outside the box, when we consider ourselves one society, not divided into Muslims and non-Muslims.

The Niqab issue is the hot potato in today’s Quebec, and this issue will make or break our living together concept. Are we ready to understand or we will remain running with our baseball bat fighting against the hate mongers and the Islamophobics without understanding the affect on the society as a whole.     

Yes, there is no place for Niqab in the work place and yes Niqab could be a threat to security. But, does this need a law, I don’t think so. If the society finds that it is essential, the law should be more specific to limit the possibility of discrimination that we are starting to notice.

This can of worms has been opened, is there any one wise ready to help in closing it, or is it too late?

* Mohamed S. Kamel: is an engineer and a recognized project manager professional (PMP), a freelance writer, the editor of I.N. Daily, co-founder of the Canadian Egyptian for Democracy (CEFD), Alternative Perspective Media (APM-RAM) and the former president and co-founder of the Canadian Muslim Forum (FMC-CMF), could be reached at public@mohamedkamel.com 

A Niqab Crisis or a Community Crisis By: Mohamed S. Kamel

A Niqab Crisis or a Community Crisis

By: Mohamed S. Kamel*

Mar 14, 2010

When a big challenge faces a community, community leaders, the wise people, come together collectively to face it and this is the only road to success.

We do not have to dig far.  We just have to look a few years back, when the so called caricature crisis hit the world.  Community leaders of Montreal’s Muslims came together and acted very fast in the best interest of the entire society.  Acted collectively, 63 organizations and mosques signed a declaration and organized a nationwide press conference. As such, Islamophobia promoters were not able to use a single person after going out of line.

Another example was the arrest of the 17, or latter 18 which then became only 8.  In Toronto, the community acted on the same level and acted more clearly and in a full unity.  

But why is it not the case today?

Some individuals led a few organizations through a single minded competitive mode, in which their organizations became the goal not the tool.  The outcome was a fragmented and fragile community.  Every single person found him/herself in a position to react because the community’s sound was not echoed, and the community did not find a real representative.        

This is a direct result of the individuality, where each single community organization would like to work separately and consider its own agenda above the entire community’s needs.

Our community has a historical problem, from individuality on a personal level, to individuality on the organization level.  Each would like to take the credit of a work that was never done.

So where to go from here?

Unfortunately, the entire community has to pay the price of many mistakes, and the price has to be paid first before recovery can commence. As such if we did never pay the price, we will never recover and the mistakes will continue, and the next generation will to pay it double.

Could damage control work, not now and it is not the solution.  Damage control pushes the community more into negative reaction and does not help them to move to the action phase.

Before we search for a solution, we have to analyse the issues and the surrounding environment.

Before the Bouchard-Taylor committee, the Islamophobics tried to use attacking Muslim as a tool for a cheap political gain, ADQ’s rise in vote. The establishing of the committee was a wise decision and the outcome was a real proof that the long work in bridge building pays.  Most of the non-Muslim organizations submitted their report favouring the so called “Reasonable Accommodation”. But how has it been achieved? It is a long story of hard work between the wise people from the Muslim and Non-Muslim Quebecers.

Quebec’s society is sacrificing all the work done in the last years.  We are sacrificing the harmonization projects, the unity among Muslim and Non-Muslim in our way to build tomorrow’s Quebec.  

A quick read through the memoires presented from many Muslim and non-Muslim associations will proof what was previously said (eg. Bloc Quebecois, Federation de femmes du Quebec, Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, D'abord Solidaire, Ligue de droits et libértés, and tens of others worked hard in the bridge building process).

Wise Muslim and non-Muslim Quebecers managed to understand the reality of today’s Quebec and worked hard in educating people to assure that the community is able to react responsibly. They worked separately and jointly in the same direction, and the outcome was yes for the new Quebec, yes for all people with different attire, different look and different background.

The outcome was clear in many things; for example, yes Hijab and Turban are welcomed in the work place, but all agreed to stay silence towards the Niqab.

This silence on the Niqab was not discrimination against Niqabi ladies, but understanding the dilemma of the society.  Also, because they are a very tiny minority and their Niqab will not interfere with the society’s way of functioning because they will not try to work and they are rarely out of home.   

The main issue was not to confuse the Niqab with the Hijab, and not to inflame the Islamophobia environment.  

Those hate-mongers tried to prove that Muslims are attacking freedom and women’s rights by forcing their women to cover-up unwillingly. Great Muslim women hand in hand with non-Muslim women wan the battle wisely and proved the opposite.

The force of darkness did not like this win-win situation and tried to reopen the issue again using the identification process during the last provincial and federal election as another window to create a hatred environment between Muslim and non-Muslim Quebecers.

They tried to show the Niqab as an Islamic attack against Quebec’s society. Once again the wise people prevailed and the man made crises was defused in a few days, with the clarification to everybody that this is a tiny minority that we cannot deny them their rights and they are wise enough to accommodate the society’s need of identifying the person in front in an election and for security purposes.   

In all those fabricated crises, the majority of Quebecers, Muslim and non-Muslim, were very clever in overcoming this issue and in helping in distinguishing between the Hijab and the Niqab, not as rights but as the affect on the society.

But lately those Islamophobics came again, and because we did not learn the lesson, came out with some lies and fabricated stories about the case of the expulsion of a Niqabi new immigrant from the school.

But this time our wiseness was not there and the short sided were the winner.

Some Quebecers, Muslim and non-Muslims, messed the story by mixing the campaign against the Niqab with directed to Muslims.  They blew it out of proportion. This could be the case if we allow the provocation to take place.

So here we are!

    

Community leaders should think of society building not defragmentation, the balance between the wellbeing of the society and individual rights could be struck.

Crises could not be defused by looking for a winner over a loser.  Crises could be defused only when we are able to reach the win-win condition.

I am not here addressing the rights, because compromise in rights is not acceptable, but I am addressing the future building and the wellbeing of our children.

We should think outside the box, and this is the real challenge of the entire society, we have to think in the wellbeing of Quebec, our Quebec of tomorrow.

 Are we there or we have to pay the price first!

* Mohamed S. Kamel: is an engineer and a recognized project manager professional (PMP), a freelance writer, the editor of I.N. Daily, co-founder of the Canadian Egyptian for Democracy (CEFD), Alternative Perspective Media (APM-RAM) and the ex-president and co-founder of the Canadian Muslim Forum (FMC-CMF), could be reached at public@mohamedkamel.com