From perogies to the prospect of Sharia law: Multiculturalism and Muslims

Robert Fulford examines the origins and consequences of mulitculturalism in Canada. It all started because, understandably, some immigrants thought they weren't "English Canadian". So instead of "bicultural"--the term used in the early 60s--we became multicultural, little realizing where it might end.

The arrest of a group of Canadian Muslims accused of plotting terrorist attacks in Toronto has thrown a shadow over a favourite monument of Canadianism: multiculturalism. Whatever the fate of the suspects, this cherished concept is suddenly up for grabs.

A little more than 30 years ago, Canada changed its approach to the question of absorbing immigrants. We had traditionally believed in old-fashioned pluralism: people of different sorts maintaining independent cultural traditions, but living side by side in an integrated society...

In the 1960s, after Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson assigned the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism to design a fresh approach to English-French relations, citizens whose origins were neither British nor French began to fear they were being excluded from a new version of citizenship.

Ukrainian-Canadians, in particular, feared the extinction of Ukrainian uniqueness...

By 1972, Ottawa had a minister responsible for multiculturalism and in 1973 a Multiculturalism Directorate. Other groups were involved, but Ukrainians remained influential...

The crucial year was 1982, when, after much lobbying, multiculturalism made its way into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms through Section 27, which states: "This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians."..

For many, especially ethnic-group leaders and politicians who sought their support, official multiculturalism was the ideal approach to an increasingly diverse country. Few suspected that in two decades, this process would produce young Canadians who neither understood nor respected the institutions that had made Canada a desirable immigrant destination...

...We should also make it clear that in Canada a religion achieves legitimacy only when its adherents respect the spiritual values of others.

Salim Mansur, a Muslim professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario, wrote in the Toronto Sun on Saturday: "We [Canadian Muslims] preach tolerance yet we are intolerant. We demand inclusion, yet we practise exclusion of ... those with whom we disagree." In what he called a "brutally honest" response to this month's events, Mansur argued that "We have made hypocrisy an art, and have spun for ourselves a web of lies that blinds us to the real world around us." Religious freedom becomes a very pale idea when used to assert a belief in one true way and contempt for other beliefs.

In this unhappy season, we need substantial criticism of multiculturalism and a redefinition of what it means. On these issues, we should look for a much better and more candid performance from our political leadership, from the media (which too willingly accept ghettoization), and from the various religious and ethnic groups in Canada. Perhaps we have to begin by admitting that over 30 years we have made some grave mistakes.

Update: Mark Steyn weighs in.

The multicultural society posits that each of its citizens can hold a complementary portfolio of identities: one can simultaneously be Canadian and Jamaican and gay and Anglican and all these identities can exist within your corporeal form in perfect harmony. But, for most Western Muslims, Islam is their primary identity, and for a significant number thereof, it's a primary identity that exists in opposition to all others. That's merely stating the obvious. But, of course, to state the obvious is unacceptable these days, so our leaders prefer to state the absurd...

That's how nations die -- not by war or conquest, but by a thousand trivial concessions, until one day you wake up and you don't need to sign a formal instrument of surrender because you did it piecemeal. How many Muslims in Toronto sympathize with the aims of those arrested last week? Maybe we could use a book on the subject. But which Canadian house would publish it? And would the faint-hearts at Indigo-Chapters carry it?

Mark C.

Posted by markc at June 12, 2006 10:42 AM