Judging Justin in "Troubling Times"

"Across Canada and especially in my home province, Canadians are being encouraged by their government to be fearful of one another. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty."
"We should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a 'none is too many' immigration policy toward Jews in the '30s and '40s being used to raise fears against Muslims today."
Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck/Files    Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau addresses students last week at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C.

A Quebec judge may have erred in informing a Muslim woman that her case would not be heard in the judge's court if she did not remove her inoffensive hijab, but as Premier Couillard mentioned, it is her court and like a ship's captain, she makes the rules in interpreting Quebec law. But not to worry; Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre to the rescue, and most sensitively, in announcing the opening of a centre whose purpose it will be to prevent violent radicalization of youth.

And lest the casual reader jump to the unworthy conclusion that youth radicalization specifically points to Islam and wildly impressionable Muslim youth swift to take up the jihadi cause, think again. The facility will, said Mayor Coderre, work with all communities to offer assistance to anyone in danger; whether it be terrorism-related radicalization or terror emanating from the unfortunate auspices of street gangs.

"Frankly, radicalization has nothing to do with one religion or one community", averred the good mayor in a bald-faced lie. The city is planning to have the prevention centre up to business as soon as possible. And in Quebec a group naming itself the United Islamic Cyber Force launched a cyber attack on the Bloc Quebecois website (and other unaffiliated sites). "The Bloc Quebecois was the target simply because of their lack of respect toward women who wear the hijab", explained a spokesperson for the group.

And then there's the wisdom of the man who would be king. King in Canada? Well, just about; since Justin Trudeau is often spoken of as the dauphin of of royal heritage in the Trudeau line out of Quebec, hankering to take his entitled place as prime minister of the country on the coattails of his esteemed/unesteemed father's place in Canadian history; a man who brought us official multiculturalism and bilingualism.

"We all know what is going on here. It is nothing less than an attempt to play on people's fears and foster prejudice, directly toward the Muslim faith. This is a free country. Those are your rights. But those who would use the state's power to restrict women's religious freedom and freedom of expression indulge the very same repressive impulse that they profess to condemn. It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot choose to wear", thundered Mr. Trudeau quietly.

Yes, Mr. Trudeau has the charisma and the subtlety to thunder quietly to emphasize his prime ministerial qualities. He does not blanch under the glare of terrorist attacks since these are misunderstood individuals for whom the root cause of their affinity to jihad must be tackled to fully understand what motivates them, since it cannot be the Koran, innocent of inspiration to attack other cultures, ethnicities, religions and quite, quite totally misunderstood by the ilk of Stephen Harper.

Who, in the opinion of Trudeau junior, has erred horribly in having his government do what legislators are voted into office by citizens of the country to do, make law. In resolutely refusing to permit anyone to take their oath of citizenship with face obscured by a veil, a mask or any other device meant to shield an individual's visage from scrutiny, Mr. Trudeau charges the Prime Minister with racism, comparing his judgement to that of Nazi Germany's.

Assimilation into the country of asylum, a liberal-democratic haven, a country of equality and liberty should logically result in women choosing to discard a primary symbol of misogynistic social-cultural oppression. The burqa and the niqab are those symbols, which hide a woman's fundamental presence as a female human being. There exists no religious tradition, perusing the Koran and the Hadiths that dictate a woman must conceal her presence behind the anonymity of covering garments.

Canadian laws and values are meant to represent everyone. Exceptions in the law, enabling individuals to claim that their rights are being abrogated through an expectation that certain conventions have universal application, unnecessarily complicate matters leading people to insist on their rights which in fact do not exist as they interpret them. Most Canadians would prefer to see the facial features of anyone facing them; much can be read through parsing expressions.

Trust, for one. It is an act of social hostility to refuse to present face-to-face, preferring instead that the other person present a naked trusting face, while the niqab-wearer conceal her identity thus creating an atmosphere of inequality and suspicion. This is a free country, and people do have their rights, but they must also respect the culture and custom of the indigenous values held dear in common social tradition by the inhabitants and citizens of the country.

As for Mr. Trudeau's claim of the current government's hostile reaction to Muslims, it is worthwhile bearing in mind that Islam at the present time has given the world a giant headache with its penchant of inciting to violence. Any who dare critique the presumptuousness that holds that all religions must be subservient to Islam -- that the goal of Islam is to conquer all that it surveys, and that by steady infiltration of Muslims into non-Muslim societies an eventual overturning of values, customs and laws will reflect Islam's -- are considered enemies.

Comparing the reaction of Canadians and by extension the Government of Canada to the dehumanizing slanders and vicious actions leading to the attempted total extermination of Jews during the Holocaust years of the Second World War is a huge affront to history and reality. The Jewish community wherever it existed never posed an existential threat to the rest of humanity. But it was targeted for extermination by an odious fascist Nazi reign, and the bulk of the international community did little to respond in aid of Jewish survival.

To compare that situation with that of Muslim defiance and entitlement while ensconced as equal citizens of a country on the one hand, while on the other demanding especial recognition and treatment leading to the reaction of refusal by authorities reflecting a general consensus transcends absurdity. All the more so that it is the faith of Islam that has bred the afflicting poison of violent jihad leading to terrorists inflicting atrocities against other Muslims as well as non-Muslims.

Mr. Trudeau's sense of proportion, justice and sanctimonious self-serving politically-inspired accusations do his own personality justice, but scare the life out of Canadians whose worst nightmare would be to see voters bringing him to the position he so hungers for, as the next prime minister of Canada. May heaven help us all should that catastrophe ever come to fruition.

J.P. Moczulski for National Post   Canadian courts would be well advised to make a distinction between religious beliefs and customary practices.

"The requirement of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to remove full face coverings during citizenship ceremonies is not onerous and is consistent with the customs and conventions of an open liberal democratic society such as ours. But the Federal Court, in a judgment delivered by Justice Keith M. Boswell, has now deemed this requirement unlawful."
"The ruling was made in a case filed by Zunera Ishaq, a Pakistani national and a permanent resident in Canada since October 2008. Ms. Ishaq argued that removing her niqab (a full face covering worn by some Muslim women), as required by the CIC regulation, would be an infringement on her religious beliefs, which are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She claimed that as a devout Sunni Muslim who voluntarily follows the Hanafi school of fiqh, or jurisprudence, in Islam, her wearing of the niqab is a religious obligation and that its removal would infringe her religious freedom."
"But Ms. Ishaq’s claim that she is required as a matter of religious belief to wear the niqab is untrue. Neither Islam, nor Hanafi rites or jurisprudence as part of Islamic belief, make such a requirement obligatory for Muslim women. The wearing of the niqab by a small percentage of Muslim women is a modern custom turned into religious mandate and enforced by coercion in public by Muslim extremists in Pakistan and some other Muslim majority countries."
Salim Mansour, professor, political science, Western University, London, Ontario