With due respect for the Toronto Star’s Chantal Hébert, we should only fight past battles with tiny toy soldiers. I was sorrily disappointed the other day when Chantal waded once again into the Elghawaby affair. We should leave the lady alone. We have enough trouble just spelling her name. What I cannot understand is what she can contribute to fighting Islamophobia in Canada.
Ms. Elghawaby has not helped matters by apologizing for something she wrote a couple years ago. Who would you hope to convince by flip-flopping on calling the Quebec government bigots? They identify their own culpability by using the constitution’s not-withstanding clause. Neither Ms. Elghawaby’s apology nor my opinion matter very much to that sorry bunch in the Quebec National Assembly.
But we do need to worry about the ingrained distrust of Muslims in Canada. Not all of us grew up in, and appreciated, the multicultural environment such as Toronto offered. Sending Canadian troops to Afghanistan always was a bad idea. In fact, all the crusades since the Middle Ages have been very much a wasted effort.
And then there are people who want to keep on fighting. Chantal mentions a misstep taken by the Ontario government over teaching French back in 1912. Is this supposedly the same as the Quebec government’s suppression of English in 2022? That is ridiculous. You would think that we would all become more tolerant and understanding over the intervening 90 years. Maybe the education system still fails us. I did not have much trouble in school with French until our Ontario-trained teacher in grade 10 tried to teach the class French, with a German accent.
But unless Ms. Elghawaby has a strong pedagogical background in addition to her being a writer, she is unlikely to help solve the problem. We need to start in kindergarten teaching our children to play nice with each other. And since we persist in separating children by their parents’ supposed religion, that effort would hardly have full effect.
And that leaves us with an elitist prime minister who seems to make his appointments on whims. What makes him think that an Ontario journalist who happens to be Muslim can help to combat Islamophobia in Quebec?
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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