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COMMENTARY
December 14, 2011
Two thumbs up
Once every blue moon, the Harper government does something that makes me modestly proud, and in the past week, there have apparently been two blue moons.The first portended the announcement of a ban on face-covering niqabs and burkas at citizenship ceremonies. The immigration minister, Jason Kenney, explained the government's position in terms which, unfortunately, "process liberals" (those who look only at technicalities) no longer understand. He pointed rightly to the symbolic effect of an oath taken behind a veil. This is not a technical matter of whether the judges can hear the muttered oath. I'm told, by a former citizenship judge, that people with very open faces, and no possible intention of deceit, regularly botch the recital anyway. But they also sign the oath, so no harm done. Rather, the facial covering itself undermines the spirit of that oath, which makes demands of people. It includes a frank assertion of loyalty to our Queen. Candidates swear that they will faithfully observe the laws of Canada, and uphold their duties as citizens. These are not nothings. They are solemn commitments. Keep thinking about them, and one may begin to grasp why they cannot be made behind a veil. Whether Muslim women choose to wear the veil elsewhere is up to them; it's a free country. The Muslim Canadian Congress confirms that there is no requirement in Islamic law for women to cover their faces. It was merely a custom, surviving in remote parts of the Muslim world, until it was revived with Islamism. Islamist women may enjoy this pressure, but it is well known that others do not. Quite apart from whether it is comfortable for the woman, it makes a political declaration that has no place in the citizenship ceremony. And it is in open conflict with admirable Canadian social traditions. Women, in Canada, had, from our pioneering origins, the privilege of looking men in the face, and vice versa. This has nothing to do with immodesty. It goes instead to the heart of the woman's place in the community. She is not a chattel. Nor is she a chattel in Shariah, except where it has been twisted by fanatic, Salafist jurisprudence. An attire that presents her as packaged goods, worn in the very moment of acquiring Canadian citizenship, tells other women who are Canadian citizens that their privilege is tenuous. The issue is not facial covering, per se. It is decidedly contextual. Given our climate, according to a facetious editorialist in this newspaper, "Good old boys in balaclavas are fine, of course." Yes, in the winter cold. But a good old boy wearing a balaclava into a bank on a hot midsummer's day would not be OK. Not even if he claimed that wearing balaclavas was a requirement of his religion. I am the last columnist in Canada to argue that the demands of the State trump the demands of God (or Allah, if we mean the same thing). We cannot say, to our Maker, that we were "only following orders," and there are circumstances in which God's law trumps man's. For this very reason we must be on our guard against unreasonable religious claims, which reduce obedience to the petty. What undermines the legitimate demands of the state, also undermines legitimate religion. The other portentous, blue-moon event was Canada's announcement of withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol. The timing of this (long expected) announcement, to accompany the conclusion of the latest environmentalist farce in Durban, was exquisite. I am proud when the government of my country refuses to bend to international peer pressure; when we make our own decisions by our own sovereign judgement. Let other countries occasionally follow our lead - as I expect several soon will, including Japan, now that we have shown that we can "just say no." The Kyoto Protocol, already an artefact of events in a previous century, is no longer worth criticizing on its merits. Quite apart from the junk science on which it was erected, it is a salmagundi of arbitrary measures. It would penalize the very countries which have made the greatest efforts to control emissions, and reward the very countries which have not. This is because it took aim not at polluters, but at free markets. Our environment minister, Peter Kent, alas, stopped short of pitching a spanner into the works at Durban. He assures the "international community" (mostly dictatorships) that Canada will continue to work toward some brave new deal in 2015, to be enforceable perhaps in 2020. Meanwhile, the "global warming" fraternity has set its own sights lower. Exposed for the frauds behind the "hockey stick" graph that inspired Kyoto, and pummelled by sceptics from every angle since, they have lost their political momentum. Durban was not about environment at all; it was about preserving the funding, the international conferences, the high life in resorts and hotels, for the environmentalist functionaries themselves. Merry Christmas to them. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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