Message To My Readers

Dear readers I was in car accident on Oct 18th. I have been hospitalized and it may be several weeks before I am released from hospital. As soon as I return from hospital I shall resume publishing my articles.

Dahn Batchelor

NIQABS: How far should they be restricted?

On September 25, 2015, I wrote an article in my blog about Zunera Hisaq, a Muslim woman in Canada who refused to remove her hiqab (a veil that covers her face accept her forehead and eyes) during the citizenship ceremony she was attending with other people. She was denied citizenship. She appealed and the matter ended up in the Canadian Federal Court. The decision of that court was that she could wear her naqab at the citizenship ceremony. The government appealed that decision and the matter ended up in the federal court of appeal. The appeal was in the form of a motion to stay the decision of the lower court. The decision in the federal court was heard by one judge.

                   

The Federal Court declared the policy of insisting that the faces of applicants not be partially covered to be unlawful, finding it to be mandatory in nature and inconsistent with the Citizenship Act. The ban was first introduced to little fanfare in January, 2011, just three months before the last election. At the time, the then-immigration minister, Jason Kenney had called it “frankly bizarre” that women had previously been allowed to don niqabs and burkas during the citizenship ceremony.

It was that decision that the government was appealing. The Federal Court judge exercised his discretion not to decide the Charter issues, as it was unnecessary to do so. However, the request for the stay of the previous court’s decision was as follows;

By providing guidance to citizenship judges who must ensure that the oath, the last statutory requirement to become a citizen, is taken, the policy at issue enhances the integrity of obtaining citizenship and promotes the broader objective of having the oath recited publicly, openly and in community with others. These are important Canadian values and an integral part of becoming a Canadian citizen. Irreparable harm to the public interest in these values would result from the policy being subject to a declaration of invalidity pending the appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Regarding the balance of inconvenience, the irreparable harm to the public interest represented by the Minister if the stay is not granted exceeds the harm to the Respondent (Zunera Hisaq) if the stay is granted.

                   

The judge in the court of appeal said; “I chose not to pronounce myself on whether or not there is a serious issue to be determined. I am of the respectful view that this is a question better left for the Supreme Court of Canada.” unquote                                                                                                   

It would have been nice if he got into the issues instead of pawning it off to the Supreme Court of Canada where it will invariably end up when the government brings the application to that higher court. The government has refused to back down, saying the issue will now be heard before the Supreme Court of Canada.

The judge finally stated; “I find that the appellant (government) has not demonstrated that refusing its application for stay would result in irreparable harm to the public interest. This suffices to dispose of the appellant’s motion for stay.”  

Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper (the current prime minister) said his party plans to ban federal civil servants from wearing niqabs. Security measures already exist that requires the removal of all face coverings for identification of anyone visiting parliamentarians or their staff.

Harper says that his political party is examining Quebec’s Bill 94, which requires Muslim women or others who wear face coverings to remove them if they want to work in the public sector or do business with government officials or receives government services.  Of course his wishes may become academic after October 19^th of October 2015 if his party loses the election.

I take issue with Harper’s proposal that any woman wearing a hiqab will not receive government services. I don’t take issue with the ban if he really means that any woman meeting with government officials will not be served if they wear a niqab.  The two other political parties, the NDP and the Liberals will refuse to back a niqab ban. If that is so, the Harper will not get the ban approved by parliament.

Ishaq subsequently took her citizenship oath before a female citizenship judge and she said that she will vote on October 19^th. Her oath is the same given to others which is; “I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors.” Aside from the smartphones of family and friends, only a CBC video camera captured the scene without her face being shown to the camera. If the ban later becomes law, women who wear the niqab or the burka can take the oath administered by a female citizenship judge.

I

shaq began wearing the niqab when she was 15. Her parents in Pakistan didn’t approve of her decision but she was determined. She said that to her, it was a symbol of her faith and her religion—a statement that she was a devout Muslim. She continued to wear the niqab when she moved to Canada in 2008 after she was sponsored by her husband. And when it came to taking her citizenship oath in 2012 she was equally adamant that she would wear her niqab while taking the oath.

I can’t help but wonder if the real reason she wears her niqab in public is because when she lived in Pakistan, many of the adult women wore niqabs in public and she wanted to feel like she too was an adult and not a child anymore.  If that is so, she may simply been so used to wearing her niqab, she is content with wearing it in public.

She said that it was her religious obligation to wear her niqab while in public. If you read my previous article on this issue you will understand that the wearing of a niqab in public is in no way a religious obligation since that obligation (according to the Qur’an) only applied to Mohamed’s wives and no other women.

Her husband thought perhaps she should make some kind of accommodation in taking her oath. But Ishaq didn’t believe that was the right thing to do. She chose to fight it in court that would otherwise be an expensive battle that was taken on, but for the most part the lawyer’s service was pro bono (for free) by her lawyers.

She said that for her, it was a matter of principle—protecting the right of women to choose what they wish to wear. Further, she rejects the rhetoric used by the Conservatives that the niqab somehow oppresses Muslim women and is a symbol of their inequality.

She is wrong in both of her statements. Women when in public are required to dress respectively. For example, In Canada, they can’t walk naked down a public street although they can walk bare breasted if that is their wish however I have never seen any woman walking about on public streets with their bare breasts showing accept when a mother was nursing her baby.

I don’t know why she feels that all the Muslim woman wearing a niqab in public aren’t to some degree suffering equality from non-Muslim woman. Some of these unfortunate women are forced to wear the niqab, because their menfolk don’t want any other man gazing at their wives’ faces. In fact some of these men insist that their wives wear burkas tocover every part of their bodies with clothing so that no other man in public can see any part of their bodies. If they are forced to dress in this manner, they are certainly being treated unequally from non-Muslim women who are under no such restraints about what they wear in public.

She says that the battle with the federal government has left her with a somewhat tarnished vision of Canada. That is an insult to all Canadians since Canada is very conscious of the rights of its citizens.

She said that her fight with the government has also inspired her to one day seek political office. In my opinion, I seriously doubt that she would get elected unless the electorates in her riding are all Muslims who approve of Muslim women covering their faces and/or bodies when in public—which is highly unlikely.

She also said that Muslims are being singled out and put into a situation where people are feeling negative and have some form of hatred for them. That is not so. Admittedly, there are many non-Muslims who feel towards some Muslims in a negative way but from what I have learned over the years, is that most non-Muslims are indifferent to the Muslims around them and accept them as fellow citizens.

She actually had the audacity to say that she wants to return Canada to a place that values multiculturalism and diversity—the kind of Canada she imagined she was adopting as her homeland when she first moved to Canada. That statement on her part is unadulterated hogwash. Canada is proud of its reputation of being a multicultural and divers community of people from every nation in the world. Immigrants, be they Muslims or others are welcomed and treated equally providing that they don’t push their customs in the faces of others and abide by Canada’s laws.

Quebec (a province in Canada) has a law that prohibits women wearing niqabs if they are employed by the government. I don’t think that would apply to women who work out of sight of the public but it certainly should if they are dealing with members of the public. The ban also applies to any woman who is personally dealing with anyone in the government on a face- t0-face basis. I support such bans.

The concern I have is that if people’s customs begin to infringe on the other people in Canada, others will bring into Canada even greater demands that will have a detrimental effect on the well-being and fraternization of all the citizens of Canada.

Picture this is you can. We don’t permit someone to walk into a bank wearing a ski mask as it will alarm not only the staff but also the customers. But suppose someone claims that he or she wears a ski mask because it is part of that person’s religious belief. What would the courts decide if they are convinced that such people really believe that it is their religious belief to wear a ski mask in public even if it is preposterous. As you can see, despite what Ishaq thinks about our laws, she has to accept the fact that our laws are written and enforced for the common good of everyone in Canada. And admittedly, some of our laws are restrictive but if the common good is the ultimate result of such laws, then we have to accept them.

We as citizens of Canada have to make sacrifices for the common good of others. However, there can be instances when our sacrifices may fly in the face of human rights. As an example, everyone is entitled to work for a living but companies who have only women working in their factories for decades can refuse to hire a man to work alongside of them and visa versa. And yet in Canada, a convicted rapist who has been released from prison cannot be refused employment by a factory that has some women working in the factory.

Immigrants who come to Canada to live have to accept our laws but they don’t have to accept the customs of others. At the same time,  their customs cannot be in conflict with our laws and governmental procedures nor can they conflict with the customs of others.

As I said earlier, women in Canada can wear anything they want providing it doesn’t conflict with our sense of decency nor create concerns about our security.

If Muslim women who choose to wear niqabs or burkas in public wish to do so, that is their right to do so. However, they cannot wear them if they drive a motor vehicle or ride a scooter or a bicycle on any public street. It is for their safety and the safety of others. They should be able to receive government benefits but when they are dealing directly with government officials and those officials are men, if all possible, a female official should be substituted. If none is available, then she must remove the veil when asked. I don’t know what should be done for women who wear burkas when dealing with men who are officials and there are no female substitutes available. If a Muslim woman wearing a niqab and is a witness at a trial, she must remove her niqab. If she is wearing a burka, she should give her testimony in another room via video in which only the judge, prosecutor, defence lawyer and a jury will see her face.  This can also be available to women wearing the niqab if they don’t wish to remove it in open court. Women wearing the niqab or burkas and are giving the citizenship oath, should be able to do so in front of a woman judge privately. If they wish to vote, they must show their face for identity purposes but in front of a female electoral officer.  

Muslim women who wear niqabs and burkas when in public have to make some concessions just as government officials will make some concessions in favor of these women.  

UPDATE: November 17, 2015. The new government of Canada decided not to appeal the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal. Muslim women can cover their faces during citizenship ceremonies.


UPDATE: May 2, 2016.  In Latvia, there are only three Muslim women wearing face veils in public and that country's Ministry of Justice claims that three is too many so they are proposing that there be a complete ban against women wearing a niqab or a burqa when in public. I will let you know what the final decision will be in that country. 

STALIN: a former monster from Russia                    

If you think that Vladimir Putin is a monster, he is a kitten compared to Joseph Stalin who was the leader of the Soviet Union (Russia) from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953.  By holding onto the post of the General secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of Russia. He got that appointment in 1922.

                   

He launched a period of industrialization and collectivization that resulted in the rapid transformation of the USSR (Russia) from an agrarian society into an industrial power. That was a good idea considering that he needed factories to build armaments to fight Hitler’s armies that invaded Russia in 1941.  

However, the cost in human lives in his collectivization (seizing) of the farms throughout the Ukraine (which was part of Russia) was enormous. The initial upheaval in the agriculture disrupted food production had contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, known as the Holodomor in Ukraine. It has been estimated that as many as 2.5–7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates had subsequently starved to death.                                                               

It is interesting to note that he didn’t seize the farms of other Russian farmers in the rest of Russia. The reason was probably because the Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe.

Stalin is mostly remembered for his purges which began with a complete re-organization of the political system of the Soviet Union. Opponents both in and outside of the Communist party were dealt with and punishments ranged from expulsion from the party to execution in  a great many cases.

Many people in Russia felt that death would have been merciful when they were sentenced to life in a Gulag Labour Camp. Nearly 500 such camps and colonies were established in the Soviet Union, mainly in the remotest areas of Siberia and millions died in the extreme conditions. In the 1920s and 1930s, 2,000 writers, intellectuals, and artists were imprisoned and 1,500 died in prisons and concentration camps.

During the time he was in power, the lives of the Russians can be summed up by his own chilling quote, “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” The most widely accepted figure of deaths brought about by this monster is around 20 million deaths while he was in power.

In 1939, the Western Allies knew that Stalin had murdered millions of his own people in cold blood and that Hitler, even though a despot, his death toll only by then had numbered in the thousands.  By the end of the Second World War, Hitler still murdered less than what Stalin had murdered.            

The Holocaust brought about by Hitler was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. It was initially carried out in German-occupied Europe by Einsatzgruppen paramilitary death squads, later the primary method of extermination was gassing in extermination camps.

Stalin hadn’t stepped that low in his murder of so many of his citizens but 20 million of his victims far exceeds what the Nazis under Hitler’s control did to the Jews and other so-called undesirables.

The term “purge” in  Soviet  political  slang  was an abbreviation of the expression purge of the Party ranks. In 1933, for example, the Party under Stalin’s leadership expelled some 400,000 people. But from 1936 until 1953, the term changed its meaning, because being expelled from the Party came to mean almost certain arrest, imprisonment and often execution.

The political purge was primarily an effort by Stalin to eliminate his challengers from past and potential opposition groups, including the left and right wings led by Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin, respectively.

In 1934, Stalin used the murder of Sergey Kirov as a pretext to launch the Great Purge, in which about a million people perished. Later, some historians came to believe that Stalin arranged the murder, or at least that there was sufficient evidence to reach such a conclusion. This reminds me of the burning of the German Reichstag (parliament building) on orders of Hitler as an excuse to get rid of the Communists and Jews.

Kirov was a staunch Stalin loyalist, but Stalin may have viewed him as a potential rival because of his emerging popularity among the moderates. The 1934 party congress elected Kirov to the central committee with only three votes against him—the fewest of any candidate, while Stalin received 292 votes against him. After Kirov's assassination, the NKVD under Stalin`s orders, charged the former oppositionists, an ever-growing group who despised Stalin, with Kirov's murder as well as a growing list of other offences, including treason, terrorism, sabotage, and espionage. Another justification for the purge was to remove any possible "fifth column" in case of a war.  Molotov and Kaganovich, participants in the repression as members of the Politburo, maintained this justification throughout the purge. They each signed many death warrants—again under Stalin`s orders.

Innocent people were also executed. For example, a family in Moscow received a package from Poland. Inside the package were clothes for the children. The children`s parents were then accused of espionage and sentenced to death. The father was executed first and 10 days later, the mother was executed.

Between 1936 and 1938, three very large Moscow Trials of former senior Communist Party leaders were held, in which they were accused of conspiring with fascist and capitalist powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union and restore capitalism. These trials were highly publicized and extensively covered by the outside world, which was mesmerized by the spectacle of Lenin's closest associates confessing to most outrageous crimes and begging for death sentences.

It is now known that the confessions were given only after great psychological pressure and torture had been applied to the defendants. From the accounts of former OGPU officer Alexander Orlov and others, the methods used to extract the confessions are known: such tortures as repeated beatings, simulated drownings, making prisoners stand or go without sleep for days on end, and threats to arrest and execute the prisoners' families. After months of such interrogation, the defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion.

Zinoviev and Kamenev demanded, as a condition for confessing, a direct guarantee from the Politburo that their lives and that of their families and followers would be spared. This offer was accepted, but when they were taken to the Politburo meeting, only Stalin, and two of his cronies were present. Stalin claimed that they were the "commission" authorized by the Politburo and gave assurances to the two men that their death sentences would not be carried out. After the trial, Stalin not only broke his promise to spare the defendants, he had most of their relatives arrested and shot.

Stalin`s purge of the Red Army and Military Maritime Fleet removed three of five field marshals (then equivalent to five-star generals), 13 of 15 army commanders (then equivalent to three and four-star generals), eight of nine admirals (the purge fell heavily on the Navy, who were suspected of exploiting their opportunities for foreign contacts), 50 of 57 army corps commanders, 154 out of 186 division commanders, 16 of 16 army commissars, and 25 of 28 army corps commissars. Many of them were later executed. Thirty percent of officers purged in 1937–39 were allowed to return to service. When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, those officers who were executed were no longer available to head the Russian armed forces in the fight against the German armed forces. 

Eventually almost all of the Bolsheviks who had played prominent roles during the Russian Revolution of 1917, or in Lenin's Soviet government afterwards, were executed under Stalin`s orders. Out of six members of the original Politburo, during the 1917 October Revolution who lived until the Great Purge, Stalin himself was the only one who remained in the Soviet Union, alive.

The orthodox clergy, including active parishioners, was nearly annihilated: 85% of the 35,000 members of the clergy were arrested. Particularly vulnerable to repression were also the so-called “special settlers” who were under permanent police surveillance and constituted a huge pool of potential “enemies” to draw on. At least 100,000 of them were arrested in the course of the Great Terror.

NKVD local officials were mandated to arrest and execute a specific number of "counter-revolutionaries," produced by upper officials based on various statistics.  The Polish operation also claimed the largest number of victims: 143,810 arrests and 111,091 executions, and at least eighty-five thousand of these were ethnic Poles.

During the late 1930s, Stalin dispatched NKVD operatives to the Mongolian People's Republic, established a Mongolian version of the NKVD troika, and proceeded to execute tens of thousands of people accused of having ties to "pro-Japanese spy rings." Buddhists made up the majority of victims, with 18,000 being killed in the Terror. Other victims were nobility and political and academic figures, along with some ordinary workers and herders. Mass graves containing hundreds of executed Buddhist monks and civilians have been discovered as recently as 2003.

All of these imprisonments and murders of millions of innocent people were done under the authority of Joseph Stalin, the monster of Russia. Like I said earlier in this article Putin is a kitten compared to Stalin, that wild animal who was the dictator of Russia before Putin.