In Canada we seem to get the multi part, but how about the culture?

Literary Review of Canada, September 2006 by Janice Gross Stein

The following article has been creating quite a stir among right-wing, fundamentalist Christians here in the United States.

Canadians today are proudly multicultural. Along with publicly funded health care, multiculturalism has become part of the sticky stuff of Canadian identity. It is relatively new, a stage in our evolution from a binational, bilingual society. An official policy of multiculturalism was first enacted in 1971, followed by the Multiculturalism Act in 1985. The first section of the constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, adopted in 1982, provides in section 27 that the Charter “should be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.”

Canadians generally respect difference, dislike any kind of stereotyping and make a conscious — and healthy — effort to avoid giving gratuitous offence. We are generally far more polite than our neighbour to the south and far more inclusive than many European states — Germany, France, Italy — that have old and deeply rooted cultures. We pride ourselves on having done it differently from the United States with its metaphor of a melting pot, an open society that demands assimilation and a fiercely assertive nationalism. We think that we have done better than older Europe, which treasures its past and lives uneasily with significant numbers of immigrants who are largely strangers in European cities. Generally, we do not have the squalid suburbs peopled by new immigrants that ring Paris, or the large-scale ghettoes that are visible in so many European cities. Different communities live side by side, if not exactly together, in Canada’s cities, with relatively little cross-cultural violence. The record is impressive and encouraging.

Despite extraordinary successes, the Canadian commitment to multiculturalism is being tested in new ways. Recent immigrants to Canada are not doing as well as previous generations. Their incomes are significantly below those of Canadians with comparable skills. The commitment to multiculturalism is also being tested by worries about “homegrown” terrorism, the fear that acts of violence may be committed by Canadians against their own government. It is being tested by a resurgence of orthodoxy in Christianity, Islam and Judaism where lines of divi¬sion between “them” and “us” are being drawn more sharply. And it is being tested because Canadians are uncertain about what limits, if any, there are to embedding diverse cultures and religious traditions in the Canadian context. We know pretty well what the “multi” in multicultural means, but are much less confident about “culture.” Does culture in Canada mean just a respect for pluralism and difference? Or is there more? Have we produced a broader set of shared values that must, at some point, bump up against the diversity and difference that we celebrate?

There is a sniff of smugness in our celebration of our successes as a multicultural society. That smugness, a culturally sanctioned political correctness, is becoming less acceptable as real divisions creep into the debate about cultural and religious difference. How far can respect for difference go? When does it constrain freedom of expression? That issue boiled over when cartoons from Denmark that Muslims considered defamatory were published, but anti-Semitic cartoons have provoked similar debates. Does respect for different cultures extend to the sanctioning of religious courts that are likely to violate the rights of women? Does freedom of expression permit one group to insult and stereotype another? And when does stereotyping subtly become incitement to hatred? Is respect for difference being polluted by a reluctance to set limits, to give positive content to what and who we are as well as to what we recognize and respect?

These questions are not important if multiculturalism is largely restricted to the celebration of song, dance, poetry, literature, language and food. It is these kinds of celebration that are the stuff of the official policy of multiculturalism in Canada’s large cities. In Toronto, on a July weekend afternoon, residents could choose among a Brazilian street festival, the Corso Italia Toronto Fiesta or Afrofest. But multiculturalism is more than a celebration of different cultures. It is part of our collective identity and a platform for our future in the global marketplace.

Here we are on far more difficult terrain where we need to ask more serious questions about religious traditions and the state. How committed are “we” in Canada to the secularization of public space? Do we welcome multiple religious symbols in public squares in December or do we ban them all? How far can religious practice and celebration extend into public space? To what extent will the state, in the service of the freedom of religion, continue to allow churches, synagogues and mosques the right to exclusive interpretation of religious law when they have an impact on the fundamental rights of Canadians? The answers to these questions tell us a great deal about what we mean by culture.

We are not the only society that is debating these issues. And we are having several debates simultaneously. The debate in Quebec, not surprisingly, is different in its focus from in English Canada. In Quebec, multiculturalism is joined at the hip to concern about the survival of the French language and Québécois culture in North America. In continental Europe — in France and Germany, for example — the debate is louder, more strident, openly entangled in questions of how the “other” can become the self, how the stranger can become less strange. Germans speak openly of how important it is that “newcomers” learn German history and culture as well as the language. France makes no claims to multiculturalism, and openly insists on a culture of laicité, or secularism, with an enforced dress code in its public schools. The debate in Britain is closer to our own. Britain cel¬ebrates its diversity, its many cultures, in theory if not in practice. Here too, however, a new debate has erupted in London’s magazines and salons about the limits to diversity that need to be put in place so that a culture of civil disagreement, rejection of violence and engaged citizenship can be created across the country’s often segregated neighbourhoods.

We in Canada pride ourselves that we have done better. We would not think of enforcing restrictions against Hebrew skullcaps, Christian crosses or Muslim hijabs in our public schools. On the contrary, we celebrate almost everyone’s religious and national holidays. Despite our rhetoric, however, I suspect that we do draw some boundaries in Canada. We are most comfortable with those boundaries that we have enshrined over the years in the rule of law and, more recently, in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We not only celebrate differences, but we also value the human rights that define the quality of our democratic norms and practice. So far, so good. Where we are reluctant to go, however, is the conflict between universal human rights that we treasure and different religious and cultural traditions. One obvious fault line, one that we tiptoe around, is the rights of women in different religious and cultural traditions in our midst.

Women in Canada are guaranteed equal treatment and an equal voice in the determination of our shared vision of the common good. We respect rights and we respect diversity, but at times the two compete. How do we mediate these disputes? What to do about private religious schools, for example, that meet government criteria by teaching the official curriculum but segregate women in separate classrooms? Or segregate women in religious worship? Should universities, for example, make space available to student groups that segregate women in worship? The University of Toronto agreed to provide space for Jewish and Islamic services that separated men from women while McGill University refused to do so.

Paradoxically, conflict is most intense not in those branches of religion where literal readings of text provide little room for interpretation or deviation, but rather in those that are most responsive to Canadian society even as they cherish their traditions. These conflicts are not abstract, but very personal to me. When I challenged my rabbi recently about his longstanding refusal to give women in my congregation the right to participate fully and equally in religious services, he argued: “I have not taken the position of ‘separate but equal,’ although I believe that a case can be made for this perspective. I have not argued for a fully egalitarian expression of Judaism, although I believe that a case can be made for this perspective. Instead, I have pressed for increased inclusion.”

Indeed, under his leadership our congregation now permits a greater degree of involvement for women in daily services, in public readings and in leading parts of the liturgy. These are far more than cosmetic changes, but to me, as significant as these changes are, they are not enough. Women are still not counted as part of the ten people who must be present before prayers can begin. Only men count. I have had the extraordi¬nary experience of sitting in a chapel and watching the leader of prayers count the men in the room, his eyes sliding over me as he counted. For all intents and purposes, not only did I not count, I was invisible.

I do not think, contrary to my rabbi, that any argument at all can be made for separate but equal treatment. These kinds of arguments have a long and inglorious history of discrimination that systematically disadvantages some part of a community. Nor is it obvious why greater inclusion should be capped short of full status, where women count as equals in constituting a prayer group. I take the Charter seriously.

My religious obligation clashes openly and directly with values that I hold deeply as a Canadian. Fortunately, there are congregations in the broader Jewish community in the city in which I live that are fully egalitarian. My cultural and religious community is sufficiently pluralistic that I can choose among a wide variety of options. That pluralism reflects the Canadian context in which this religious and cultural community has developed and matured.

A resolution of my personal dilemma may be available to me — I can vote with my feet — but the issue is public as well as private. These religious institutions that systemically discriminate against women often have legal standing and are therefore recognized, at least implicitly, by governments. How can we in Canada, in the name of religious freedom, continue furtively and silently to sanction this kind of discrimination? It is this issue that was at the core of the debate in Ontario about sharia law and orthodox Jewish courts within the framework of state-sanctioned arbitration.

Charitable tax status raises similar questions. If religious institutions are able to raise funds more easily because governments give a tax benefit to those who contribute, are religious practices wholly private even though they benefit from the public purse? Are discriminatory religious practices against women a matter only for religious law, as is currently the case under Canadian law, which protects freedom of religion, or should the values of the Charter and of human rights commissions across Canada have some application when religious institutions are officially recognized and advantaged in fundraising? Does it matter that the Catholic church, which has special entitlements given to it by the state and benefits from its charitable tax status, refuses to ordain women as priests?

We have thus far been unwilling in Canada to ask these kinds of questions. They make us uncomfortable. They are politically incorrect. They are not respectful of different cultures and traditions. Like other societies, we in Canada live with some convenient hypocrisies. I have deliberately chosen a personal issue — the issue of women’s participation in religious services in my own synagogue — to open up this difficult discussion of the desirable limits to multiculturalism and religious freedom. Some would urge silence and patience until a new social consen¬sus emerges. Opening difficult conversations too early can fracture communities, inflict deep wounds and do irreversible damage to those who are most open to experimentation. In my own congregation, I have been counselled for the last five years to be patient. Give it time, I am told, and the synagogue will become fully egalitarian.

I find it hard to be patient into the indefinite future, with no commitments from my religious leadership. I worry that change will stall unless we keep a civil but difficult conversation going. There is no question that there is a conflict between equality rights, on the one hand, and the right to freedom of religion, on the other. The law recognizes that conflict, but we need to ask hard questions about the balance between them. My synagogue is ahead of comparable synagogues in the city, even though it is behind others in North America. If I am expected to be patient, almost endlessly patient, then religious leaders must be cognizant of the responsibilities of their organizations that receive charitable status and public benefit to engage with Canadian culture as it is expressed in our most fundamental laws.

There is, as we know, often no perfect solution when rights compete with one another. Canadians do not tolerate deliberate incitement of hatred by one group against another. The law is careful; it sets criteria of deliberate intention to spread hate and does not punish a spontaneous utterance that was not intended and willful. It does, however, quite deliberately limit freedom of speech when that speech becomes hatred and incitement to violence. What responsibilities do leaders of religious and cultural communities have, then, when some members preach the use of violence against others? Do religious and cultural leaders within these communities have an obligation to move to stop this kind of preaching when they hear it? The rule of law will take us only so far in answering these questions.

Religious leaders certainly have no legal obligation to do so. We are all individually responsible for our own actions. But do they have a civic obligation to do so as Canadians who share the consensus against incitement to hate and the respect for diversity? Toronto Star editorialist Haroon Siddiqui argues eloquently that community leaders have no special obligation. In the wake of the arrests of 17 Muslims in Toronto, he warned in June, correctly in my opinion, against assertion of collective Muslim guilt, but argued, incorrectly in my view, that community leaders have no responsibility at all for what members do. “Any time some Muslims somewhere commit an atrocity, a chorus of voices demands of Muslims everywhere: ‘What do you have to say about this?’ They should have to say nothing more than Christians or Jews or Hindus must for the wrongs of their co-religionists. Muslims are also told to ‘take responsibility’ for their deviants, ‘root out their extremists,’ ‘weed out the radicals, etc.’ How are they supposed to do that?” Siddiqui asks. “By becoming vigilantes?”

These are good questions that deserve serious deliberation. Did the local imam in the mosque in Toronto, Ali Hindy, where fiery sermons inciting violence were routinely heard, have a respon¬sibility to challenge the preacher, to dispute the interpretation of the text and to warn the young people of the risks and the dangers? I think that he did. That kind of behaviour is not vigilantism. It is responsible debate about the limits of religious freedom in a Canadian culture that abjures hate.

I can and do ask the same question of myself. Although the two issues — systemic discrimination against women and incitement to hatred — are different not only in degree but also in kind, I think that I do have an obligation to challenge my rabbi. My behaviour is neither vigilantism nor obstructionism, as it is frequently labelled by some in my religious and cultural community. It is designed to provoke responsible debate about the limits of religious freedom in a Canadian culture that embeds equality and human rights in our most fundamental laws. Religion tends to give a franchise to the past and, in this sense, will always reflect both the cultural and countercultural in the society in which it lives. That it gives a franchise to the past does not remove responsibility for engaging with the present.

We are at one of those hinge moments. The widespread movement of ideas and people is global, enriching of our society, and is a marvellous opportunity for Canada to grow and develop in the next few decades. A vibrant immigration is especially important as our population ages. If we are to make the most of that opportunity, however, we will have to build a deep rather than a shallow multiculturalism. Shallow multiculturalism is a veneer, official policy but not embedded practice, that can have damaging consequences for a democratic society. What I call deep multiculturalism is a resource and a strength of a democratic society in an era of globalization. It needs to be capable of meeting three core challenges.

First, it is important that we join the discussion of equality rights and cultural difference with explicit attention to the overlay of social and economic inequalities. Multiculturalism is shallow when social and economic inequalities reinforce and strengthen cultural difference and then fuel a sense of victimization among an impoverished minority. From this sense of grievance can grow frustration, anger and occasionally an explosion of violence. England and France, each in its own way, have recently undergone variants of this kind of experience. They each are now looking hard at the economic and social disparities among cultural and religious communities. We need to do the same in Canada.

Second, deep multiculturalism builds bridges across cultures. Shallow multiculturalism can strengthen each culture within its own boundaries. Each community can learn its own language, its own history, its songs, its poetry. But one community does not necessarily learn about another and then multiculturalism can have perverse effects. It can strengthen the boundaries around each community and, in so doing, help to seal one community off from another. A Home Office report, issued in England after riots broke out in three northern industrial towns in 2001, found “separate educational arrangements, community and voluntary bodies, employment, places of worship, language, social and cultural networks,” producing living arrangements that “do not seem to touch at any point.” Trevor Philips, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, warned recently that much of Britain was “sleepwalking its way toward segregation.”

How are cultural and religious communities living together in Canada’s cities? Are they segregated, living side by side rather than together? How often does one join in the other’s celebrations? Where do communities share public space? There are some worrying trends in multiculturalism in Canada. Some children, for example, go only to their community schools until they are ready for postsecondary education, worship at community institutions, go to community summer camps, play soccer or hockey within their own communities, and make friends only with kids who have similar cultural connections. The pattern in Britain is being replicated in some of our communities in Canadian cities. These closed patterns of associations may well not provide enough opportunity to talk across cultures. To the credit of my synagogue, that same synagogue that refuses to give women equal rights, the rabbinical leadership has been extraordinarily aware of the importance of building bridges and has been a leader in interfaith dialogue and shared services among Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Third, we need to make robust the meaning of “culture” in our experience of multiculturalism. We have to make explicit the contradictions between cultural and religious traditions and the rule of law in Canada, when such contradictions exist. There are very large areas where there are no tensions at all. But where they do exist, we cannot turn away. We have to begin the uncomfortable and difficult discussion of conflict among values and work very hard to find an appropriate balance. And if we cannot find that balance — I have failed miserably thus far with my own rabbi — we need to make clear that the conflict is real and serious. We are not simply Jews or Hindus or Muslims or Christians or Indians or Pakistanis or Somalis or Germans; we are Jews and Hindus and Muslims and Christians and Indians and Pakistanis and Somalis and Germans who live-together-in Canada. That we live in Canada matters. How we live together in Canada matters. Our sense of what Canada is, our commitment to the Charter and to human rights, what Canada gives us and what we owe it, is what we collectively bring to each new cultural encounter. It is what gives meaning to Canadian culture within the tradition of multiculturalism.

Janice Gross Stein is Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and the director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.