Quebec Says ‘Non’ to the Niqab
Whether they admit it or not, virtually all Westerners hate the niqab and burqa for the anti-democratic ideology and misogynistic gender relations they signify. Many are increasingly willing to say so.
Why does political correctness fall away when it comes to the niqab? Because other Islamist inroads, like Sharia banking, happen offstage, so to speak. They are not “seen” by the public. But the niqab is open to the collective public gaze. Individuals responding to their own discomfort observe that discomfort mirrored in other people’s faces, which in turn emboldens them to protest. Politicians know grassroots support when they see it and several Western leaders have seized the moment for legislating partial or full niqab bans.
Parallel to the parliamentary efforts now advancing in France and Belgium, Quebec recently tabled a new law, Bill 94, which will ban the niqab — or any face cover — when extending and receiving public services in such institutions as courts, hospitals, schools, and licensing bureaus.
It is no accident that Quebec is leading the way in North America on this file. Quebec, apart from multicultural Montreal and its diffuse northern native populations, is the last bastion of ethnic homogeneity on the continent (with a not-unrelated tendency amongst ethnic québécois to politically incorrect candor), a province where obsession with cultural preservation drives the political agenda.
Since the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, cultural preservation has become synonymous with the linguistic hegemony of French. But Catholicism, however vestigial in terms of practice and influence, still rallies the loyalty of québécois in the face of perceived challenges to their cultural security.
Because the controlling hand of the Catholic Church fell particularly heavily on women in the past, Quebec is also the most militantly feminist of Canadian provinces. Female politicians exert a powerful influence over all social and cultural policies and disbursements here. The galling sight of veiled, depersonalized women in this women’s rights stronghold arouses far more animus than any multiculturalist ideal can counter.
The decisive move, approved by 95% of Quebecers (a rare moment of political accord uniting federalists and nationalists) and 75% of all Canadians, followed a cultural tipping point, arrived at in November 2009, when a niqab-clad Egyptian woman, Naema Ahmed, was expelled from a government-run French class. This was done for pedagogical reasons, not religious ones; hostile to suggested compromises in advancing phonological competencies for which the teacher’s direct observation of her mouth is crucial, she exhausted the administration’s patience. Notable in her case, however, is the fact that the school felt so hamstrung by political correctness and dithered so long, the government stepped in to order the expulsion.
Ahmed’s indifference to the sensibilities of her classmates and her general belligerence were helpful in reinforcing the public’s impression that she was making a political rather than a religious statement. That she later tried to re-enroll, still veiled, in another French course — unsuccessfully — and promptly filed a complaint with a human rights commission gives the whole caper the earmarks of an Islamist shot across the bow.
Wow! Could it be we could take a page from the Quebecers? It seems others around the globe are waking up to the muslim bs while we here in the US, under the leadership of the all wonderful ,all knowing “o” sink deeper into the arms of Morpheus. . . . What will wake us up?
Can we transport Ms. Ahmed to Arizona please?
Tried to copy and paste link, it did not work!!!
Great article and I love the defiance with the statement concluding.
In that case, benign xenophobia — the kind that aligned with feminism to produce Quebec’s Bill 94 — is what one might call an atout, a trump card in the grim cultural war games to which all democratic societies have been co-opted, where victories that do no harm to democracy, like the niqab ban, are few and should be regarded as precious.
The rest of Canada and in particular the United States are badly in need of an atout. 8.5 years after 9/11 all of the atouts belong to the Muslims with a Mosque being erected mere feet from ground zero, the Shanksville 9/11 memorial containing a Muslim crescent and the election to the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama, the fake Christian, who uses the Muslim crescent in his personal logo.
Cheers to Quebec.
Also, the below, from a neighbor to your South.
¨recently tabled a new law¨
from http://www.etymonline.com¨: table (v.)
in parliamentary sense, 1718, originally “to lay on the (speaker’s) table for discussion,” from table (n.).
But in U.S. political jargon it has the sense of “to postpone indefinitely” (1866).
Your link doesn’t work. Seems to be an extra ” at the end where it doesn’t belong.
What does Quebec and Hijabs have in common? Both force their culture upon the victims with threats…
Women like and demand the hijab because it beats the “beating/honor killing”;
If French & “French” cultures are so great and awesome, why do you need laws to keep it/force it, should it not flourish on its own in the market place of “ideas”…?
Dhimmi
I understand what the words stands for…what do you mean?
Bruce, The hijab is just a headscarf and does not cover the face. The niqab or the burqa completely covers the person from head to toe, including the face. Many woman throughout the ages have worn hats or scarves on their head. Few people have a problem with women covering their head with a scarf. When the face is covered however, it is very difficult to interract with the woman. The niqab and burqa are a very definite statement of separation. It says that they do not want to mix or interract in society. Do you know the whole story about Naema Ahmed? She was hardly a “victim”. She was in a language class which required interraction and conversation with other students. She refused to talk to the men in the class and insisted on giving presentations with her back towards the class. While you may consider that Quebec is “forcing” its values on these poor “victims”, you should also consider that a healthy society cannot function if half of its population are “separate”. There are many other countries and societies which they can chose to live in “separately”.
Bruce,
Quebec HAS won in the marketplace of ideas because Muslims immigrate to Quebec (and the rest of the free West) while very few Westerners immigrate to places like Yemen, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, after immigrating, some Muslims seek to transform the society they are moving to instead of assimilating to its customs. However, Muslims are still free to try to peacefully persuade Westerners to change – unfortunately, too often, however, they seem to resort to violence, as in beating or raping women who refuse to wear the hijab instead of using peaceful persuasion and intellectual discussion, or when they punched and shouted down that Danish cartoonist at Upsaala University instead of offering reasoned debate. It doesn’t seem like Islamic culture is market-based when it comes to ideas.
Note that Westerners moving to Saudi Arabia accept its rules, such as a lack of freedom to worship, female restrictions, etc. If they do not, they face far worse punishments than being kicked out of a classroom.
The hijab is not the issue. It’s niqabs and burkas, both of which cover the face. The hijab is the head scarf worn by many Muslim women. It doesn’t cover the face.
White leftists no matter where they live, do not live in reality. Whether here, in Canada, UK or in Europe, they all are given to submission to Islam, to overlook the inhumanity of Islam and to provide cover for Islamic jihad and the takeover of other nations. Obviously PC means more to them than security and a national and tradional culture.
It cannot be mere conincidence that they all think alike. White leftists must use the same playbook. The question is who wrote the book? Lenin, Aylinski, Ayers???
Good for Quebec! Every single bit of legislation that can be passed against Islam is good for a society, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Islam is a danger to everyone and must be stopped by any legal means. Islam is at war with God, Democracy, Capitalism, women, minorities, gays, every single other religion, freedom, individualism, and just plain common sense.
It seems the rest of the civilized world is pushing back against islamic domination except the USA. Obama is actually assisting in the muslim subjugation of America.
“Quebec immigration minister Yolande James was forthright in making it plain that “if you want to integrate into Quebec society, here are our values. We want to see your face.””
I love that statement. It’s pure and simple. If our Muslim friends want to ignore our beliefs and rules while forcing thier lifestyle on us, then they should turn around and go back home.
I agree. This is about the best statement you can make to serious immigrants of to any culture- if you are moving here to live amongst us, you need to make the effort to assimilate. We’ll help, and yes, we are interested in your cultural background, but where that background clashes with our laws and morals and morays, you, the immigrant, need to adapt. Don’t move here and try to change it to the place you left behind.
It clashes with our morays, all right – even carnivorous eels wth pharyngeal jaws shouldn’t be subjected to this degrading garment!
(What it really clashes with is our mores. Seriously, though, I agree.)
I am waiting with baited breath to hear the shrill cries of Muslim women claiming they “choose” the veil. Whatever. The only choice they have is to wear the veil or have their pervert father, uncle, brother, or cousin throw acid on their faces or murder them to preserve so idiotic sense of honor. Calling this a choice is akin to an armed robber claiming his crimes were legal transactions because he gave his victims a choice between their money or their lives.
Good for Quebec. Maybe you are not quite the cheese eating surrender monkeys I thought you were.
“I am waiting with baited breath…”
Actually, you’re waiting with bated breath, unless you’ve just been eating earthworms.
Celebrating mob rule (“95% approve!”), isn’t very pro-freedom.
Obviously you can’t tell the difference between a mob and a democratic majority. Unfortunately, that’s what makes the left so unattractive these days.
NOT mob dipweed.. The word is..”majority” and majority is supposed to rule, except if you live in the US.
That was 95% of citizens…not passers through, like latinos and muslims to America , whose voices ring louder than citizens.
GO CANADA!!!
…hate the niqab and burqa for the…
Hate ? how about the garments being ugly and cumbersome, a black bug suit, a beekeeper’s costume ? On the insect theme, I think of cockroaches.
I read comments from a Saudi woman and a Yemeni woman that such covering feels “protective” when they’re out in public.
Once I saw a photograph of a group of Saudi women on an outing. The only way you might have distinguished them was by their purses…and their shoes.
(a single line in the Koran about women covering their hair when the women-stealing marauders come around…leads to all this ? Mohammed’s women certainly didn’t dress like that)
In hot desert climes, the burqa has got to be stifling, note Saudi men sport white, reflective clothing.
In northern climes, it would be especially bad to be wholly covered for possibly developing a vitamin D deficiency.
It’s funny when polticially correct places like Quebec and France wind up banning the garb. I guess, as you say, the niqab is a manifestation of less blatant or obvious inroads into the culture, like shari’a.
Some very cowardly men have dressed in the garb to hide their suicide vests.
And you’ve got weirdos like Osama bin laden and, reportedly, the American born terrorist, al Awlaki, now in Yemen, who go ballistic when they see an unveiled woman.
“I read comments from a Saudi woman and a Yemeni woman that such covering feels “protective” when they’re out in public.”
Of course they do. They live in a society that deems uncovered women fair game for rape.
I imagine there is a whole host of reasons for wearing the burqa in countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia, ranging from lifelong habit (no pun intended) to feeling “secure” from leering stares to something like the burqa being de rigueur in a society where there is strict separation of the the sexes in public. Some women in both countries reject all of it, and, apparently, aren’t murdered or arrested.
In Iran, where covering is generally less all-inclusive, the dress police will approach women on the street and measure their skirt length and so forth.
A few weeks ago, a measure was enacted where looking too suntanned (“mannequin like”) in Tehran can get you arrested. A few weeks before that, some cleric attributed earthquakes in that earthquake prone region to scantily clad women !
All this emphasis on women’s dress is very telling. Something about Islam in general & control of women where, even in Canada which is the subject of this piece, Islamists have attempted to usurp Canadian law in domestic/family matters.
Some Muslim women in Canada realized what was up and fought hard against any inclination to allow the imposition of shari’a standards in domestic matters in Muslim/Canadian families.
My wife’s father is from Iran, and he has gone back only once since the revolution. My wife, born in Germany, has never been. While it was necessary to see some family members that are older and may not live much longer, he said it was not the country of his youth. In his words, he said it was no longer a Persian country; it has become and Arab country. What he missed the most was that in his youth, you could hear musicians on the various street corners which have all been replaced by the “athan”, the call to prayer. He also saw a woman arrested in Teheran by the “Dresstapo” for a clothing violation. She was beaten and kidnapped right off the street. Some of these women never come back. I imagine, when the Mullocracy is finally shown the door, a similar law will be enacted there to the one that the Attaturk put in place; no head coverings on public property.
…a woman arrested in Teheran by the “Dresstapo” for a clothing violation. She was beaten and kidnapped right off the street. Some of these women never come back.
Yes, they wind up in prison where the prison guards might indulge in that phony exercise of “temporary marriage” prior to raping them.
The destruction of Persian culture is depressing.
I imagine, when the Mullocracy is finally shown the door, a similar law will be enacted there to the one that the Attaturk put in place; no head coverings on public property.
That’s something like the law in France.
In Turkey, female university students have actually been fighting for the “right” to wear the headscarf at university.
Turkey, under Erdogan, seems to be going away from the kind of country Attaturk idealized.
If you REALLY want to disgusted, try to go swimming at a pool with public or paid acess in Orlando, FL. My family refuses to enter the water because of all the women who enter the pools in FULL burqa or niqab. I feel like I would be stepping into dirty laundry water.
To make matters worse, the “men” who are their owners (it hardly seems right to call them husbands) lord it all over everybody that they can swim in trunks, etc.
Another reason why Islam should be abolished.
The province of Ontario needs to do that as well, but they won’t. Premier Dalton McGuinty is an uber liberal. Toronto is full of hijabs and burkas and now the subway is advertising with women in hijabs. Sickening….
Let’s remember that the ban is about the niqab (I’m looking at you, Bruce Stein) which is a FACE cover, not a general head covering. I do favor a face covering ban because it fosters inequality – namely, I am disadvantaged because my identity is known to the general public, while the niqab-wearing woman obscures her own.
I’ve noticed the defense of the face veil or head covering varies according to situation.
When forcing non-Muslim women to wear a veil or head covering in Muslim nations, it is argued that the veil is cultural, and therefore it is reasonable to demand it of all within the culture.
But where the veil in not part of the culture, or is even is counter to norms where identification is important, the veil is then argued to be a religious requirement that they cannot disobey.
While things can be both cultural and religious, only one is responsible for the absolute requirement of the veil. Which is it? The answer is, it is whichever allows them to best get their way at the moment.
“Quebec Says ‘Non’ ”
Just out of interest, I wonder what the breakdown was between Anglophones and Francophones.
FYI, the stats about mother tongue in Quebec are Francophone 79%, Anglophone 8%, both 1% and other 12%. That’s as of the last country wide census.
I’ve always found Quebecers as a whole as annoying as the French, but they’ve done the right thing here. We should be emulating them.
Before 9/11 there were Muslim women where I lived, who wore headscarves and some who wore kaftans and pants. There was no black. Nor were there black Americans wearing any sort of religious garb. After 9/11, the black clothing and niqabs started to show up, most commonly on people who were obviously of American origin.
A niqab looks like a bandit mask, and it as well as the robe that goes with it are commonly used by men to hide weapons.
When did George Bush become Premier of Quebec? We haven’t seen this kind of anti-Muslim bigotry since he was sent back to the ranch for good.
vinny – could you explain the logic behind your comment? What does President Bush have to do with the Quebec decision?
With regard to bigotry, do you consider that an individual who comes to a different society and refuses to accept the mores and customs of that society is showing acceptance or rejection of the people of, in this case, Quebec? If the young woman refuses to speak to the men in her class, is this showing bigotry towards the values of Canada, which assert that men and women are equal?
If she refuses to address others directly and insists on addressing the class with her back to them, is this showing her acceptance or rejection of their society and their involvement with her?
Don’t you think that such a clear rejection, by her, of all the people in her new land, suggests her own deep prejudices, bigotry and refusal of the culture of her new homeland?
Again, kindly explain your comment.
Don’t you think that such a clear rejection, by her, of all the people in her new land, suggests her own deep prejudices, bigotry and refusal of the culture of her new homeland?
That particular student seemed to be trying to draw attention to herself, to make herself the issue, in her French class.
Reminiscent of a Florida woman who insisted on wearing the veil while driving, which can interfere with peripheral vision.
These situations may well be orchestrated by people in the background, as a kind of push in the interests of “soft jihad”…sabotaging the miserable house of the unbelievers from within and fostering the future dominance of Allah’s true religion.
HELLO?? Earth to Vinny…HELLO??HELLO??? George W. is no longer the President of the United States, and hasn’t been for awhile now. Have you been camping out under a rock? Or is your hatred of all things Bush so deeply ingrained that you can’t hold an intelligent conversation with somehow tying that bad old meanie Bush into it. Of course if you had actually LISTENED to President Bush you might have heard him say that the United States wasn’t at war with Islam, but rather with radical elements within. OK, you can drop back into hibernation now.
HELLO?? Earth to Vinny…HELLO??HELLO??? George W. is no longer the President of the United States, and hasn’t been for awhile now. Have you been camping out under a rock? Or is your hatred of all things Bush so deeply ingrained that you can’t hold an intelligent conversation with somehow tying that bad old meanie Bush into it. Of course if you had actually LISTENED to President Bush you might have heard him say that the United States wasn’t at war with Islam, but rather with radical elements within. OK, you can drop back into hibernation now.
This is incredibly funny. If you knew anything at all about Quebec politics you’d be embarrassed by your own words. Provincially, the government is run by the Liberal Party (equivalent to mainstream Democrats in the US) and has been for years. In the Federal government the Province of Quebec is represented primarily by members of a separatist political party known as the Bloc Quebecois. They are as hard-core left as you can get. I rarely agree with either of them, but on this one I’m solidly behind mon cher ami Quebecois.
The burqa (the body dress) and the niqab (face veil) have no role in modern society.
The dress/veil of women and the long robes of men suggest their origin as protection against sand and sun.
The dress/veil of women hide the age of the wearer and this suggests a mode of protection against inter-tribal warfare of the pre-industrial ages when child-bearing women were viewed as war-prizes.
Neither have any religious significance or role.
Furthermore, when an individual chooses to immigrate to another country, they do not simply come to an empty land base but to a society with established behavioral norms and beliefs. To come to this society and its people, determined to ignore the established beliefs and behavior and instead, insist on bringing an old set suggests an arrogance, a disdain, a refusal to acknowledge the very identity of the new land and its people.
What rankles is this open rejection by Muslims of our country’s beliefs and behavior. One has to ask them – why come here if you make your disdain and contempt for us and our ways so obvious? Why not stay where you were?
Furthermore, to expect that the population of the new country should accept the contempt of the immigrant, and change to accomodate the immigrant’s ways, is outrageous. Why, when we do not have such a history, or such beliefs, should we abandon the history and beliefs we have?
Again, we have to ask: why have you come to this land, with its culture and customs, if you reject both?
I like the term “soft jihad” above. Their reasoning is: if we don’t bend, the decadent West will, eventually. After all, it’s working in Europe…
I lived in Québec from 1978 to 1991 and speak the language well enough that European francophones assume I am a native of that province. Québec still struggles with a huge problem, in that their local birth rate has long-since fallen off the table. As a consequence they depend on immigrants, either from francophone Africa, including the بلدان المغرب (the place of sunset, or northwestern Africa) or the Caribbean.
For decades Law 101 has required schooling in French for all children of parents not schooled in French, except for those schooled in English in Canada. Because my schooling was in the States my children were required to attend school in French — feature, not a bug, in my estimation.
The core problem is this: Québec wishes to preserve its pure laine culture — pure wool — but has not the birth rate to maintain it. Children such as mine speak the language with native fluency, but most importantly they do not THINK like the indigenous Québecois.
Controversies surrounding the نِقاب (niqab, or “mask”) are merely an extension of these other tensions. Even many Arabs use a plural variant (=munaqqabat) in a rather derogatory designation for women militant about the thing. I shared a lab for two years with a couple of Iraqis, and both they and the Moroccans I knew had nothing but contempt for “southern” Arabs, meaning Egyptians, Saudis, Yemenis, Sudanese, and so on. Even then they were derided as ignorant, hard-core militants who respected their camels more than their women.
The sorts of pseudo-islamic extremism now being rejected officially by Québec have been rejected culturally even by northern and western Arabs in the province for at least the last 30 years. It’s no sign of racism, and I’d be willing to bet that Anglos were almost 100% in favour of the ban.
I visited Morocco last summer. I saw about as many women there in niqab as I have seen in Germany despite the obviously different ratio of Moslems in society. While head coverings are more prominent now than a generation ago, the niqab is viewed as a foreign non-Moroccan type of clothing. Most younger women wore no head covering at all; in fact, in downtown Rabat, you could easily look at the people in the cafés around you and imagine that you were in southern Europe. Many girls went completely overboard with tight, revealing clothing and a couple coats of makeup applied very generously. Even in the poorer districts, the 2 or 3 women in niqab I saw stuck out from the crowd and attracted more attention than women wearing the traditional djellabah with no head covering. The most obvious sign of religious observance was that I saw quite a few men from the uneducated side of town had the “head bump” that comes from praying extremely hard. (Al-Queda’s second in command also has the “bump”.) Most people I met where quite European. Some that had visited the west were extremely pro-Jewish. Since Moroccans can figure out that someone is Jewish quite quickly, many of them seemed more interested in digging out old Judaica and selling it than anything else. Many also bragged about their Israeli friends that come to visit when they are in town.
In light of all of this, it is hard to demand the “right” to wear the niqab as anything religious at all; it is a relatively new cultural phenomena exported from Saudi Arabia by tv.
Interesting. Close to forty years ago now, I did a tour of the Middle East and I recall clearly that there were next to no niqabs or even hijabs worn by the women. I think these garments have become an issue in Western society because the goal of Islamisation is what brings many of the new immigrants here. It’s entirely political and unwitting/unknowing westerners don’t understand that those who complain about the lack of accommodation are playing them like fiddles. I don’t think it would be unfair to suggest that most of the western sympathizers are from the liberal/socialist end of the spectrum.
40 years there were no niqabs in the ME, but now more women wear niqabs then ever before. I think that is due to the fundamentalist teaching of Muslim Brotherhood, to their work among poor, to the feelings that being “truly” religious will result in economic improvement and to the resentment of “the West”. Even in Turkey there are more hijabi then before. The only exception is an Iran but then in Iran they have a theocratic government and one of the forms of protests is dressing in a “bad hijab” (i.e. loosely worn hijab).
A lot of it is a response to modernity that has not been favourable to Moslem countries. On one hand, they are told that they have the best culture, the best religion, and that they are superior; when you look around at the world, it is obvious that this isn’t so. In order to reconcile their beliefs with reality, they turn to conspiracy theories that at the same time make themselves out to be powerless victims yet the strongest culture in the world. This cognitive dissonance results in a lot of the things that we in the West find peculiar, and the Israeli-Arab conflict is a perfect example of this. The Arabs were constantly told that Jews were weak, so in order to justify Israel’s continued existence, they turn to wild theories to explain why reality does not match their worldview instead of adapting their worldview to the modern world that they see. Instead of adapting to the world, they want to remake the world in an image that puts them on top of the pecking order. You are certainly right about the increased religious sentiment in the Moslem world; it has always fluctuated, but head coverings were viewed as a backwards country custom in countries like Egypt and Turkey in the 50′s and 60′s. If you have ever seen some of the Egyptian films from the time, you could mistakenly believe that they were European productions. Islamism is seen as the magic wand that will put the “ummah” in its rightful place. I read something recently that pointed out the extremes of feelings toward America in the Moslem world as an example of their larger cultural stagnation. Even “friendly” countries like Egypt hold extremely negative views of America and Israel, but nearly all of them would immigrate tomorrow if given the chance.
Maybe it will cycle. Arab nationalism did not work, and maybe some will see soon that Islamism will not work as well. We can only hope that they find a way to reconcile with the modern world as quickly as possible.
Both Canada and the United States should wise up to these barbarians. Islam is a political cult masquerading as a religion. No Muslim can assimilate into a democratic society. When they reach a certain tipping point they become more and more aggressive using the laws of the “host” for their parasitic attacks upon the host.
Muslims should be banned. No more Muslim immigrants. They are DEATH!
I echo those sentiments almost on a daily basis.
Many southern US states already have laws forbidding covering the face in public. They are left over from the days when the KKK was a significant presence. However, as far as I know these laws are still on the books. They may be of some use in the 21st century.
what shall bring our country down first? Islam, illegals, debt? all the above? and when?
Obama is working on this.. he’s really made headway..
Excellent. Now let’s kick all the dang Anglos out too.
And the French speakers, along with all the whites-RIGHT Nick?
Spoken like a loyal Pequist!
Given that it was the retarded Canadians who gave the world multiculturalism to begin with, it is only proper that they now begin to dismantle it.
Yes, one day we are going to force one language and orange clothes in public.
A few more bombings, and beheadings by the ROP, and they will say non to the Mosques.
Barbara, I caught part of your interview with Michael Coren. Thank goodness for the internet to see it again and again.
With Maxime Bernier sounding like a confident Quebecer who does not need to be bought off with money from other parts of Canada, what you describe bodes well for Quebec, ultimately Canada, and at least part of the United States. And then, well who knows.
Thank you.
Thank you Mr. Lincoln for pointing out the Michael Coren interview with Barbara Kay. I just finished watching it on youtube. Canada is blessed to have such a fresh, common sensical and courageous voice.
Mark, you are very, or most, welcome. The people who tend to submit comments here, especially the one’s who communicate pleasantly, even when they disagree, these kind of folk don’t take what Michael Coren and his guests have to say.
Ann Coulter was a guest, and it is well worth your time to look for that interview, as well as the one’s with Lord Monckton, and the new British Schools Minister Michael Gove, just to name a few. There is a lot to choose from, so enjoy!
That should have been, don’t take for granted what Michael Coren and his guests have to say.
FYI: http://www.reutrcohen.com for more of the same.
David W. Lincoln
I listened to all 5 parts of Michael Coren interview with Barbara. However funny thing happened when I tried to find Part 4 of that interview. When I searched for that part the reply on youtube was “No videos found for “Michael Coren with Barbara Kay – part 4” only when I went to the source (i.e. to the person who put the videos on YOUTUBE) then I could find the part four.
Strange isn’t it?
Very interesting. I’ve enjoyed reading Barbara’s columns for years, and it is good to put a face to the words.
As for youtube.com acting that way, I am sure that there were people who were scared as to what Barbara said in part 4.
Good thinking on going back to the source to view all of it.
As a bilingual anglo Quebecker who taught many years at the Universite de Montreal let me give you a bit of background about the Quebec situation. The province controls its own immigration and favours francophones. However white individuals from France have a hard time jumping through all the hoops the bureaucracy puts in their way while francophone north Africans are or were shown the welcome mat. The results have been disastrous for Quebeckers who no longer want to deal with the consequences of their misguided policies.
The other point about Quebec is that the domiinance of the French language is a bit of a joke. Quebec must use English to communicate with the rest of North America as well as those areas of the world – mainly in Asia – where English is the accepted and acceptable lingua franca. Lastly if one visits institutions of higher education in Quebec one will find that the bookstores carry texts in English for the pure and applied sciences and business studies. So all in all the picture of Quebec as a heroic keeper of nationalistic faith is a wee bit unrealistic.
Speaking as one who joined the Reform Party in July, 1990, and was very happy for the role Guy Bertrand played in the 1995 (?) referendum, and now seeing Maxime Bernier pick up the standard, it is good to see people willing to chuck the disastrous 60′s until today, in favour of what has stood Quebec (indeed everyone) in good stead.
We have less jingle in our pockets, but that doesn’t mean we are culturally poorer. At least, we are starting to put up a fight to those who inflicted on us the worst trick of all time – political correctness.
I have always favoured voluntary measures to preserve culture, because the most vibrant cultures incorporate willingness more so than compunction to keep on going. Which is why I have bookmarked Maxime Bernier’s blog.