Canadawide

Prior to June court ruling that legalized gay marriage in Ontario, I was weary of supporting gay marriage. I felt that Canadian social conservatives were slowly but surely falling into a slumber for which they never awake and the legalization of gay marriage would simply delay the process. For this reason, I supported the idea that the state should simply get out of the marriage business altogether.

As it has turned out, I was right worry. The issue of gay marriage has galvanized social conservatives in Canada. As a result, the government has decided that it does not want to make it an election issue and so has asked the Supreme Court to clarify some issues. As the Courts decision will not be due until well after any election, the government will not have to show its hand.

Assuming that the current political scandal settles down and the Liberals go on to win their 4th straight majority, the issue of whether Canada will refer to legally joined gay couples as married couples, or use some euphemism will be discussed after the courts decision sometime this fall. Alberta will present some special difficulties, but with it legal in 2 provinces already, the courts behind it and with the major of the population supporting the notion, all Canadians will have the right to marry people of either sex shortly thereafter. (Alberta has very little leverage. It has to recognize already existing marriages. All it can do is refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples who want to get married there. Furthermore, given that there is consensus even in Alberta for granting gay couples the right to join in a legal union that would give them the same rights as married straight couples, it is likely that Klein will make a lot of noise, paint himself as the victim and then allow for gay marriage.)

Now, what I failed to consider in the lead up to the June ruling was the type of international attention this would garner. Indeed, I was not expecting the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg to voice his approval so loudly or for the Britain’s Economist pronounce Canada “cool”. “Good old Canada” Hertzberg wrote -- in the Independence issue no less. “It’s the kind of country that makes you proud to be a North American.” In the US alone, gay marriage and a plan to decriminalize pot, had gained Canada glowing reviews in the NY Times, Washington Post, San Jose Mercury, Pittsburg Gazette, the Christian Science Monitor and the aforementioned New Yorker. Such praise has not gone unnoticed by Canadians, especially young Canadians. 58% of Canadians say gay marriage and the plan decriminalize marijuana is a source of national pride.

Besides, propping up the egos of nationalistic liberally minded Canadians, the gay marriage ruling coupled with Canada’s decision to stay out of Iraq and the impending decriminalization of pot has oddly enough brought the country closer together. In 1995 Canada came within a hair splitting apart. The French language was then and will always be the main issue separating Quebec from the rest of Canada. However, many Quebecers also felt that English Canada did not share the same values as Quebecers and so they voted to separate. If the polls are an indication, what values gap there is shrinking rapidly and Quebecers are noticing this. 69% of Quebecers say that the way Canada is moving on social issues and is a source of pride. A staggering 90% of Quebecers approved of the government’s decision to stay out of the war.

So, where does all this relate to what is happening in the States? Well, first of all, although the issue has mobilized social conservatives there, the way it is playing out in the States can only benefit the Democrats in the long run. Specifically, whereas in Canada the only issue left on the table is whether the word “marriage” is already patented by heterosexuals, conservatives in the States are not conceding much at all and this has enabled proponents of gay marriage to frame their fight as akin to fight over civil rights in the sixties. Far from extending the life of social conservatism in the US, acts of SF like civil disobedience will only accentuate a values gap between old and young that will eventually break into the open. If Bush decides to go ahead with a plan to enshrine bigotry into the Constitution, things will happen even quicker. Once this happens, the Republicans will find themselves on the wrong side of the ledger demographically speaking (if I am not mistaken on 5 key questions relating to social mores America is becoming progressively more liberal) and so will be forced to make some difficult decisions concerning their relationship with the Christian Right.

Another thing gay marriage debate may do is that may help bring the US and rest of the West closer together a la Quebec and the rest of Canada. A prominent US politician who backed gay marriage would gain instant, for lack of a better word, street credibility in many other Western nations. Take Canada. Invariably, Canadians prefer democratic presidents to Republican ones. This holds true even if the Prime Minister and President are perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be the best of pals. Socially conservative Republicans simply rub Canadians the wrong way. Quoted in the NY Times, McGill Economist Chris Regan puts it a little more bluntly. “You can be a social conservative in the United States and not be a wacko. Not in Canada.” This is unfortunate for Bush for not only do Canadians not like his policies, but they can not stand his straight talking down home manner that endures him to American voters. He is the least popular US president in Canadian history. The last I heard his approval rating was 15 %.

This is just an aside, but many of those commentators who wrote so positively about Canada’s plan to decriminalize marijuana have misinterpreted the situation. They have seemed to be sucked in by Chrétien’s remark that once he was retired he might take up smoking marijuana. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.” Indeed, between January of 2001 and December 2004, the very Constitutionality of Canada’s possession laws were in question. They were struck down in 4 Provinces and in Ontario last summer it was legal to possess 15 grams or less. If that was not enough, in September 2002 a special Canadian Senate Committee recommended in stark language that Canada legalize marijuana. “Marijuana they said is not illegal because it is dangerous; it is dangerous because it is illegal.” Viewed in this light, the marijuana bill is revealed as an attempt to gain some sort of parliamentary control over the whole process. This was particularly important for America’s drug Czar John Walters relayed in no uncertain terms that the US would radically slow down border traffic and thus hinder trade if Canada did not come up with a solution that worked for the US.

Although in many respects a welcome step forward, the proposed law, if it were to be enforced, would in many respects represent something of a crack down in certain quarters. In no place is this truer than in Vancouver. In commenting about possession being struck down by a BC court, police spokesperson, Anne Drennan noted that at the time the decision was not binding and that even if it had been it had been it would have be more or less irrelevant. "In Vancouver, we very rarely arrest for simple possession of marijuana. There would have to be exigent circumstances." In saying so, Drennan simply confirmed what every Vancouverite under 30 already knows. The police here do not write you up for possession charges; at worst they just take your pot. If the new law is enforced, young Vancouverites would have to pay anywhere from a $100 to $400 fine. (Naturally enough, Walters had singled out Vancouver for special treatment. The current mayor was elected on an overwhelming mandate to implement safe injection sites. Walters flew to a Vancouver to make his views on the subject clear. Safe injections sites he said would make the problem worse, not better. Not stopping there, he said that marijuana is as dangerous as heroin and cocaine. When asked about Walter’s contention that safe injection sites would make things worse, Mayor Campbell said his assertion was akin to saying that “flies cause garage”. His comments about marijuana were equally ill received by the public and by the local media. According to a 2001 poll, 56% of British Columbians favor legalization. Nationally, 46 percent do. In the meantime, 78 percent of Canadians are happy to support decriminalization.)

To be fair, this has not escaped the eye of all American Journalists. The NY Times reported the results of the 2001 poll and NY Times’ Clifford Krauss penned the following about what he earlier called “Vansterdam” in article about the supposed growing values gap between Canada and the US. “No Canadian city reveals the differences as much as Vancouver. It looks like any American city, except that the drug culture is abundantly open. The police rarely interfere with bars, store fronts and even offices were people can buy or smoke marijuana. A “compassion club” distributes marijuana legally to cancer patients and others who have doctors’ notes.”

France's Scarf Ban


The battle over the hijab is only superficially a battle between religion and secularism. What is happening in France is by no means unique. It is but one example of European governments on both sides of the political spectrum rethinking their approach to religious and ethnic minorities. Lost in the kafuffle about religious head gear in France, for example, is plan by Belgium to enact a similar ban and a German plan to make arranged marriages illegal.

What spurs European governments to act is this. According to some estimates, if Europe continues on as it is, the median age in Europe will go from 37.7 today to 52.3 by 2050. By comparison, because of the high number of immigrants let into the country each year and because of its relatively high birth rate, the median age in American will go up only slightly to 35.4. What this means is that while the US will eventually recover from the impact of all those baby bombers retiring, things in Europe look progressively bleak. As Professor Charles Kupchan notes, “today there are 35 pensioners for every 100 workers within the European Union. By 2050, current demographic trends would leave Europe with 75 pensioners for every 100 workers and in countries like Italy and Spain the ratio would be 1 to 1.” Not only will there be a long and sustained pension crisis, but since the European population is on track to shrink quite rapidly, for that reason alone, prospects for economic growth do not look good. Despite a having a high immigration rate by European standards (Germany has highest percentage of foreign born residents in Europe), according to a UN report at its current pace the German population will drop by 10 million. Italy, which has a much lower immigration rate, will loose 15 million. Needless to say, there is recognition amongst the powers that be that Europe must open its borders to more immigrants.

The problem is that Europe has done a poor job interrogating religious and ethnic minorities into mainstream society. There is no better example of this Germany’s Turkish minority. Up until 1973, Germany recruited guest workers to help fill jobs that were going wanting during the post war economic boom. Most of these workers turned out to be Turks. However, Germany never intended for these workers to stay in Germany, let alone become part of German society. For this reason, German citizenship laws are based on blood, not on birth. Children of refugees, guest workers and other immigrants born in Germany are not guaranteed citizenship. Today roughly 30 percent of welfare recipients in Germany are foreigners -- three times the national average. Many of those on the dole are Turks. While German politicians tread lightly around the subject of race, not everyone follows those taboos. Barbara John, a Bundestag member for the Christian Democratic Union, has claimed that 42 percent of the 127,000 Turks living in Berlin are unemployed, and that only a few speak adequate German.

The situation in France is also troubling. Although composing almost 8 percent of the population, conservative politician and civil rights activist Zaïr Kedadouche notes that "There isn't a single Muslim in Parliament to vote on this law and not a single Arab among all the country's mayors." A disproportionate number of Muslims live in France’s banlieue, the gritty urban suburbs/ghettos that house the poor outside French cities. As noted in the New Republic recently “The unemployment rate in the banlieue hovers above 25 percent, and reaches as high as 40 percent in some areas. Only four percent of the beur--French slang for "Arab"--boys who grow up there reach university.”

The failure to ingrate its minorities, particularly its Muslim minorities, into society has helped spawn a European wide anti-immigration backlash in the 1990s that has led to rise of the likes of Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jorge Haider. The anti immigration sentiment blocks politicians from acting in two ways. The first is obvious. Like any key election issue, politicians must hone their message so that it is tune with public opinion. Going against the tide of public opinion will only get them thrown from office. The second is less obvious. Since many European countries have proportional representation, the 15% to 25% of the popular vote these anti-immigration parties garner in many European countries means that they inevitably from to time form part of a governing coalition.

911 and a corresponding spike in religious strife, particularly in France, have made resolving this issue even more urgent. Indeed, not only is there no political will to let in more immigrants, there is suddenly a push to fully assimilate existing ethnic minorities into European society.

To this end, many countries are finally getting at the root economic and social causes of the problem. In France the National Agency for Urban Renovation intends to refurbish or build new housing for nearly 6 million banlieue residents by the end of 2008. Some of the program will involve the relocation of partial neighborhoods to more affluent city centers, and the project could initially create around 100,000 new jobs for residents. And in Germany, the government has continued the process of remaking Germany’s archaic citizenship laws.

This is not seen as enough though. Mainstream parties have felt pressured into trying to beat the anti-immigration parties at their own game. This is one reason why Chirac has banned religious wear in France. 70% of the French population supports the ban. Surprisingly, Le Pen opposes the ban. Jeremy Harding in this Month’s London Review of Books attributes this to Le Pen's need to appeal to his base – no pun intended. “When it comes to veil-politics he hasn't much room for manoeuvre - on the grounds that by wearing the hijab, Muslim women distinguish themselves from 'les Français de souche', i.e. people of bona fide Gallic stock, and that this is fine: it will make things easier, the implication is, when it comes to throwing them out.”

“Teachers are ... clear that the wearing of religious symbols tends to exacerbate the divisions over heated issues such as Palestine.” As such, Harding is right to note that “this is a management issue … as much as a matter of principle, and a very urgent one, because of the frightening rise of anti-Semitic harassment in French schools. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, during one school term alone, more than four hundred anti-Semitic incidents were reported, which is why, on the eve of the war, the minister of education, Luc Ferry, suggested the time had come for students to 'drop crosses, veils, skullcaps' and 'play by the Republic's rules'." If nothing else the ban obscures the embarrassing fact that a de facto ban on skullcaps is already in place in many French schools and that this has been the case for a few years now.

Lastly the ban seems designed to create various fissures within the Muslim community itself and between the Muslim community and the French New Left. With regard to the former Chirac hopes that creating such a fissure he might be able to speed up the rate of assimilation. This is debatable, but the hijab is certainly natural point of attack. Not only has there been more than 80 years of debate about Turkey’s banning of hijab, 49% of French Muslim women support the ban. (It is worth juxtaposing Europe and Turkey on the issue of traditional Islam. The father of Turkey is of course the arch secularist Ataturk. It was his vision to turn Turkey into secular European State free from the trappings of Islamic traditionalism. The guardians of this vision are the Turkish military and the hijab, as it was in Ataturk’s day, is still banned in offices and schools. However, in recent years the military has slackened its grip on power. In 1994, for example, the former mayor of Istanbul was jailed for reciting a poem containing the following verse. ''The mosques are our barracks, the minarets are our bayonets.” That same man, Erdogan, is now the country’s Prime Minister. One of the reasons for the softened stance of the secular elite is that they need to loosen their grip on power if Turkey is to have any hope of meeting the Copenhagen Criteria for entrance into the European Union. "Membership requires that the candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and, protection of minorities.” Plus, Erdogan has toned down the rhetoric and promised to take Turkey into Europe. It is thus ironic that while, the Turkish elite has grudgedly held back their “Kemalist” tendencies and given the democratically elected Islamists more freedom in the hope getting into Europe, Europe has begun to bow to democratic pressures and has seemingly become “Kemalist”.)

With regard to a latter, Chirac seems to be hoping to break apart the alliance between the New Left that is the source of what French Education Minister calls a “spectacular rise in racism and anti-Semitism in the last three years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/magazine/29ANTISEMITISM.html?ex=1078635600&en=9d1417a44ee51579&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

The Atlantic Monthly summarizes the findings of controversial EU report on the spike of anti-Semitism in early 2002 thus: “The authors argue that the confluence of the Palestinian intifada and the passionate debates over 9/11 led to a spike in public expressions of anti-Semitism, and also in violence against Jews and Jewish property. The report goes on to point out that although this violence—physical attacks, the desecration of synagogues—was primarily the work of young Muslim men, anti-Semitic rhetoric was increasingly heard from the far left, where vicious attacks on Israel and the United States often relied on traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes. The report singles out pro-Palestinian demonstrations at which Arab-Muslim and leftist groups stood shoulder to shoulder, and anti-Semitic slogans and placards were prominent. It suggests that among many European leftists, legitimate opposition to Israeli and American policies has metamorphosed into a belief in that hoariest of anti-Semitic clichés, a "Jewish world conspiracy" that is pulling the levers of power around the globe. A leaflet from a German anti-globalization organization neatly captures the idea: drawn in the style of Nazi propaganda, it depicts Uncle Sam with a "Jewish" hooked nose, dangling the world from his finger.” In a recent poll 59% of Europeans named Israel as the biggest threat to world peace.

By pitting the secular minded lefts, who preach gender equality, against the most militantly minded Muslims, who tend to be fundamentalist and traditionalist in outlook, Chirac is aiming at destroying alliances that have developed between these two groups over the last decade.