Fundamental Values

A Palestinian man who immigrated to Canada and his wife operate a private daycare in Montreal. The owner's wife and two of the personnel who work for them wear niqabs. There are thirteen parents who pay to have their young children looked after in the daycare. The fact that the three daycare workers wear the niqab in public seems of no concern to them. They appear to have been satisfied with the quality of care their children have received.



Someone, it seems, snapped a photograph of the children in the care of the black-clad women whose faces were covered, revealing only their eyes. The children appear to be behaving like children everywhere do, obedient to the wishes of their minders who are taking them for a walk to a nearby Verdun public park. They haven't returned to the park with the children since the day the photograph was taken. And since that photo was taken, some of the parents have removed their children from the daycare.

The photo was taken without permission and posted online on Facebook. It had eight thousand hits. And a whole lot of comments. Some of which were just plain disgusting. Many, though expressed cultural shock at the sight of two women dressed in a manner that elicits both pity and reproach when anyone in the West sees photos taken somewhere in the Middle East or Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Reaction was swift, heated, sometimes horribly uncivil, but universally condemnatory.

It's not difficult to understand why many people would be taken aback at the unusual sight of two burqa-clad (chador and niqab) women, herding children dressed for the outdoors in Canada. It is the polarizing view of an ordinary Canadian scene superimposed with a restrictive, patriarchal custom demeaning to the dignity, safety and independence of women characterized by the black-clad minders.

Quebec, under the Parti Quebecois government, has recently distinguished itself by reaffirming its secularly societal character with the proposal of a new charter. It shed its deeply religious heritage during the social upheaval of the Silent Revolution. The Catholic Church became a background element of choice in a society that had decided to remove itself from the constant daily intrusion of religion in their lives; religion became a private affair.

And most Quebecers prefer it just that way. It grates against their sensibilities to see overt symbols of religion, any religion. But in all probability in particular any religion other than what they were historically accustomed to. Come to my country, to my province, to become a citizen and be prepared to absorb and to reflect my values and my customs. Add them to your own if you wish and welcome to it, but leave the religious aspect private, in the background.

The francophone population has patterned itself on its original homeland of France. And France is a stoutly non-religious society that maintains a strict divide between church and state. It is in this way that it maintains the egalitarianism that it prides itself on; everyone equal, liberty for all. And so, although France, like all European countries, has absorbed a large infiltration of Muslims migrating from their countries of origin, the expectation is that the French culture will predominate.

To that end the Paris Appeals Court has overturned a high court decision in favour of the head scarf-wearing employee, and it has affirmed that a private nursery school was justified when it fired an assistant director who had refused to remove her head scarf while she was working at the school. A head scarf, not something that covers the face, but that covers the hair, the top of the head, the neck of the wearer.

The hijab is a common enough sight in Canada. Worn by many women who are practising Muslim. It does signify that they worship Islam, but it is a chosen cultural and conditioned expectation that pious and not-so-pious Muslim women wear the headscarf. It must suit their view of themselves in reflection of their surrender to Islam. And although it is an obvious sign of their faith, it is a fairly unobtrusive one.

The complete face covering like the burqa which consists of a total screened face covering incorporated into an overall body covering, and the niqab, worn in conjunction with the chador, the all-enveloping body garment, do not have a place in Canada. This is a habitude that is isolating, rejectionist, anti-social, and completely alienating. In a civil society people have an obligation to one another as human beings.

We communicate with one another by voice and vocabulary but also by body language, eye contact and the human involuntary and voluntary greetings conveyed by our facial muscles. When we encounter other people it is incumbent on us as civil human beings to acknowledge the presence of others. A nod, a smile, a spoken word, even silence and a turning away of the head indicating disinterest is a form of communication preferable to the absence of any sign of humanity.

In France, a woman by the name of Fatima Afif who worked at the Baby Loup nursery school was fired for refusing to remove her head scarf. French laws ban head scarves in public school classrooms and face-covering veils in public places. No laws exist to regulate religious garb in private institutions, schools or places of work. Muslims, understandably see those laws as restrictive, infringing on their religious freedom and freedom of expression.

On the other hand, they chose to emigrate to a country whose laws long predated their migration there. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights opened a hearing in another case where a Muslim woman is contesting the face veil ban. The French government's Observatory of Laicite, guides official action respecting secularism, plans to issue its own guide on the issue.

There are many groups in France; political parties, social workers and other professionals who fear the country's constitutional guarantees of secularism is being undermined by immigration. Its increasingly diverse population, particularly the growing and already-large Muslim population appears to be having that effect, and the point is to head it off, to preserve the country's own values.

The same can be said for Canada.