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So says a canadian town.
But whatever happend to multiculturalism? And respexting other people's culture? Isn't such a declaration, in canadian eyes, RACIST, as my canadian friend has told me repeatedly?
Oh well, maybe the canadians are waking up!
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English
“Last year a Montreal gym agreed to install frosted windows after a nearby Hassidic synagogue said it was offended by the sight of adults exercising.
Newspapers say a Montreal community centre banned men from prenatal classes to respect Hindu and Sikh traditions and an internal police magazine suggested women police officers allow their male colleagues to interview Hassidic Jews.”
Although the problems span many other cultures, the declaration seems to focus on those with the muslims
it also fails to find a single society where burning woman alive or with acid is an accepted cultural norm, such things are crimes wherever they happen let it be India or Egypt.
The idea of such a declaration may not be racist. It could have lead to constructive debate had the author tried to read more before drafting it.
I am afraid that, given the arrogant and ignorant tune of such declaration, many people will respond in the line of “a man should not kidnap and kill 26 women in one life time” or a “ a teenager can not shoot dead his study colleagues” and similar nonsense.
u gotta keep into consideration sam, that this example is from quebec. And quebecers have major identity issues.
The other thing this place they speak of is to small to be a town let a lone a village! 1300 people! Dude thats like my apartment building in cairo. i wonder how much interaction those quebecers form this tiny community have with immigrants.
finally, note that the article didnt name a single incident that encouraged people in that direction.
How could it be worse?! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
Sandmonkey, you are The Greatest!
Sheesh, I like reading your blog so much that I’m in serious danger of becoming an unhinged fanboy for The SandMonkey.
The Smackdown link and the Racist Cajun Frogs link more than compensate for the [real, actually] grief induced by the [too real] abusive-Egyptian-police links.
Please keep up your fine work. You provide a real connection to the M.E. and Muslims in Modernity that would otherwise be sorely absent. Plus, your ear for Americo-English idioms is spot on.
Thank you, and lots and lotsa Peace Be With Ye!
jfd
I could tell you as a Canadian, we are still very much asleep.
A college paper printed a cartoon of Jesus providing oral sex to a (capitalistic) pig. Of course, it was no big deal. But we still managed to climb our high horse and condemn those racists Danes. And of course, you should have seen the “we are all Hezbollah now” signs last summer.
Obviously these new Quebec laws are addressing a problem that doesn’t actually exists. It is meant to be provocative, and a tad too far for my liking.
But I do think it is important for Canada to become more confident in ourselves, our culture, and our values. Our obsessive American hatred and cultural relativism can make us the next France… not that I don’t think the average night of 100 burning cars isn’t pretty.
Quebec is an interesting province. They are unapologetic about their right to be a “nation” with the purpose of defending French language, culture, and values. Yet they are also the first people to scream out “apartheid racist criminals” when Israel wishes to do the same. Go figure.
Is not it strange that an overwhelming majority of westerner sandmonkey fans are obsessed with Israel and Zionism. Even in a post about faraway Canada and its multiculturalism Israel is mentioned as an unfairly maligned victim.
The way you frame this story, ya SM, is as if it was legal in most Muslim countries to stone women. Which, as you well, know, is not aside from maybe our freak cousins in Saudi Arabia and the deposed Taliban regime. And all to make some bullshit right-wing point about multi-culturalism?
And I agree with Amgad at #6 above — but I’ve made that point before.
Is not it strange that an overwhelming majority of westerner sandmonkey fans are obsessed with Israel…
Why would you think that’s strange? It’s the Arab world’s pathological hatred of Israel that has gotten us all to where we are, today. And we all know it. You know it too. Why should we pretend that’s not the truth, when every damned one of us knows that the whole war on terror is about Israel/Palestine?
Amgad, I mentioned the comparison as an interesting (and ironic) part of Quebec culture.
Incidentally, I also mentioned Jesus… so I covered all three Abrahamic faiths! (sorry Hindus, next time I swear)
As far as multiculturalism goes, Canada is obsessed with it. And I must say, I think up to now we have pulled it off relatively well, specially compared to Europe. There are problems with skilled foreign doctors and engineers working in minimum wage jobs, but we are working on it.
If things get worse though, suddenly America’s melting pot structure will look a tad more attractive.
Oh, I freely admit that as a Jew on SM’s blog, I have an unhealthy obsession with Israel and I apologize. I know it can be annoying. But in my defense, I think Jews and Muslims share this obsession equally.
The French Canadians aren’t so PC as English Canadians. And when they don’t like something in the consitution (say rights to speak English) the premier actually declared an emergency (year after year) so he could suspend constitutional rights – that is until he was condemned in the UN.
This is no abbiration, this is French Canada.
it also fails to find a single society where burning woman alive or with acid is an accepted cultural norm, such things are crimes wherever they happen let it be India or Egypt.
Your faith in humanity is misplaced.
You know the king of Jordan tried to introduce a law, mandating real punishments for honor killings. It was defeated.
I found it mystifying that one Jordanian politican said that such a law would interfere with a right to religion. Another said that all of the women (and girls?) killed are whores who deserved it.
And don’t look too hard at Pakistan, you’re not going to like what you find. I remember one case where a tribal council mandated rape as a punishment, no doubt followed by death for the crime of having been raped.
On burning women alive, it’s possible they’re referring to the Hindu practice of Sati (suttee), whereby newly widowed women were toasted right along with the former hubby on the pyre. General Sir Charles James Napier was attributed as saying of the practice:
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
Throwing acid in peoples faces, insomuch as it’s a custom in any particular place I remember reading of, is popular in Somalia and Jamaica.
Josh (#10), that’s not even close to an accurate description of what’s happened in this province. No emergency was ever declared to suspend rights under the constitution because of people speaking English. You’re making it sound like we here in Quebec are living under military rule.
seems like you missed the point entirely… all that stuff is illegal already… but the fact that some town council in hicktown quebec would declare that because muslims are moving in things need to be reaffirmed is the offensive part. the majority of muslims in QC are lebanese, jordanian and upperclass palestinians from the gulf as well as fairly wealthy pakistanis all those practices are not necessarily customary of those ppl… certainly not so much for the wealthy. So yah, monkey those are ignorant rules set up to protect a quebecois culture… i’m sort of embarrassed by the way that you framed this one… we have more trouble with ppl stabbing our imams then we do with muslims inciting violence.
Jehan
Wanna read an ongoing debate about it, go here
Oops. My link didn’t work. Try again.
…told you. Masks make US(A) uneasy, except on Halloween. Looks like the Canadians don’t like ’em either. Looks like lots of folks don’t want to give up western freedoms or embrace religious dictatorships. Wonder why? LOL
I give the Hérouxville people props for having the balls to ignore the PC crap that passes for intelligent commentary on cultural accommodation in our corner of the world. BUT I give them a big thumbs down for doing it in such a crude, sledgehammer-over-the-head way. Would it kill them to at least meet a few immigrants first? I agree with Jordan though, Canadians could use a dose of cultural self-confidence. Les Québecois are way ahead of the rest of Canada in that game.
No emergency was ever declared to suspend rights under the constitution because of people speaking English.
What happened was Bill 101 or The Charter of the French Language, which, unconstitutionally, made it illegal to have signage in English.
This was later changed to allow it, but only if there is also signage in French, and French signs have to be more prominent than English ones, bigger, and above English ones.
And yes, the Premier did sign an emergency order suspending constitutional rights a few years in a row in order to leave that unconstitutional law in place until he was condemned in the UN.
See Mordecai Richler’s book Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country
Jehan
You concentrated on the rules the town council made but did not read all.
At the end of that set of rules they wrote
To do this, we would like to invite, without discrimination, in the future, all people from outside our MRC that would like to move to this territory.
Without discrimination means to us, without regard to race or to the color of skin, mother tongue spoken, sexual orientation, religion, or any other form of belief.
So that the future residents can integrate socially more easily, we have decided unanimously, to make public, certain standards already in place and very well anchored in the lives of our electors.
It is not a statement of the “some town council in hicktown quebec” is it?
Fuck multiculturalism, long live interculturalism.
Amgad,
“Is not it strange that an overwhelming majority of westerner sandmonkey fans are obsessed with Israel and Zionism. Even in a post about faraway Canada and its multiculturalism Israel is mentioned as an unfairly maligned victim. ”
You are presumably referring to Jordan’s #5 post, which is the only one preceeding yours which makes any mention of Israel, and only then in a passing reference regarding the alleged hypocracy of the Quebecois. It also, in referring to Canada, references Lebanon, France, and Denmark. Is it not strange that the only reference you found objectionable was the one to the Zionist Enti – er – Israel?
Well, look at it like this. How would, say, islamo fascists feel if we moved into THEIR village and proceeded to set up a women’s school that taught driving, politics, and business? (And by islamo fascists I mean Taliban-like.)
Putting aside the fact that the school would be blown up and all the teachers beheaded…that village wouldn’t like it.
Basically, the town is defending the soverignty of their living practices/lifestyle. Nothing wrong with that….you don’t like it, don’t move there. Unfortunately, few people seem to see it like that.
It’s interesting how several commenters assume this is aimed at muslims.
All the article refers to is “immigrants”. The customs prohibited are stoning women “in public”, burning them alive and throwing acid on them.
Remarkable that, when the cap fits, some of us wear it. Even though the cap doesn’t have our name on it.
“Even in a post about faraway Canada ”
Faraway… Well Amgad, there are quite a few Canucks running around this insane asylum, making it not quite so ‘Faraway’ 😛
A few objectors to this are eager to point out how most/all of this is illegal in (most) of the ME. Except KSA and maybe one or two others… IT WASN’T COUNTRY SPECIFIC. Get that? And things being ‘il’-legal in Egypt sure as hell doesn’t stop the police from doing them now does it. Or did SM just make up all these torture videos and stories about mass rapings on public streets while the po-po did squat?
This town simply said what our fucking LAWS say, that the PC crowd chooses to ignore EXCEPT when committed by WASPS and other whites. I swear if Ernst Zundel was anything but white he’d still be free to live and speak his racist crap in Canada, unbothered by pansy-assed hypocritical mofo politicians.
So to all who object, do you think that really anything they’ve said is unrealistic for any rational human being to follow? If so, please NEVER come here.
Canadians. History’s greatest monsters.
Good work, Herouxvile! I wish every municipality in Canada had this kind of guts. Their website is sizzling hot and the comments on are 99% positive. The fact is that Canadians are sick and tired of those immigrants who try to impose their imported values and, in doing so, dilute and diminish the culture of the host country. As far as crudeness goes, I’m all for it. I call it the truth. And, yes, I’m an immigrant too.
I doubt if the good citizens of Herouxville have failed to notice what goes on in France with her immigrant minority. I haven’t read the full declaration, but let’s hope it includes not locking women inside, not beating gynecologists, not wearing veils in schools, not gang raping un-veiled girls, not leaching off the system and not burning your neighbors cars.
dick Says:”It’s interesting how several commenters assume this is aimed at muslims. All the article refers to is “immigrants”. The customs prohibited are stoning women “in public”, burning them alive and throwing acid on them. Remarkable that, when the cap fits, some of us wear it. Even though the cap doesn’t have our name on it.”
Yes. As is well known, these problems are common in the Chinese community. Catholic and animist Africans are famous for burning their women and throwing acid on them. How dare anyone suggest that these pathologies might be a little more common in the Muslim world than anywhere else! That such Thought Crimes could go unpunished is a reason for the UN to take over administration of the internet so that self-hating unpatriotic bloggers like SAndmonkey can be thrown in jail for letting Fascists even suggest such a thing.
Eva Canada:
I am sorry Eva, what the hell is Canadian culture? Canadian culture is immigrant culture. Otherwise, please explain.
“I am sorry Eva, what the hell is Canadian culture? ”
I’m not sure either, but as an American I’m quite sure it’s something that incorporates Beer, Maple Syrup, plaid flannel, hockey, Mooses, Beavers, Back-Bacon, and Ice fishing into one seamless integrated whole labelled in English and French.
Eva?
Ben
HeiGou: “Remarkable that, when the cap fits, some of us wear it’
What I’m alluding to here is Jehan’s comment “those are ignorant rules set up to protect a quebecois culture… we have more trouble with ppl stabbing our imams” and issandr’s “you frame this story, ya SM, is as if it was legal in most Muslim countries to stone women”.
I take these as defensive comments: “poor us, they’re attacking us again just because we’re muslims. It’s unfair. Why are we victimized like this. Why is it always us, not the others. These things are not legal in our countries of origin anyway. These quebeccers – and the monkey too – are bigots”
Rather than “some amongst us are giving us a bad name. We must take every opportunity to disown them. Let’s show we’re not as quebeccers fear, by supporting this, admittedly over the top, outlawing of hateful practices. Let’s side with those who want to assign the middle ages to history.”
Or even “they’re exaggerating a bit, but I understand why they would feel that way”.
I’m implying that muslims who think that reactions like herouxville’s are unreasonable are perpetuating the underlying problem by ignoring the root cause.
“I am sorry Eva, what the hell is Canadian culture? Canadian culture is immigrant culture. Otherwise, please explain.”
Just because we don’t beat the world over it’s collective head with our culture doesn’t mean it’s non-existant.
“but as an American I’m quite sure it’s something that incorporates Beer, Maple Syrup, plaid flannel, hockey, Mooses, Beavers, Back-Bacon, and Ice fishing ”
You forgot the ‘aboot’ 😛 and the mounties…
“Just because we don’t beat the world over it’s collective head with our culture doesn’t mean it’s non-existant.”
Jason how exactly does America beat you with it’s culture? Is it like
“Oh dear god, the fraggles are destroying our society.”
or
“Man we can’t stop buying this stuff. I wish I lived in the house instead of the attic.”
You nucks do have George St. Pierre though, which counts for something until Hughes takes his belt back.
mikek,
Silly boy. It isn’t the Fraggles. It’s the Smurfs!
Canadian culture is part of the Western culture. The aspects of that culture are plainly stated on the Herouxville website. Go there, scroll down until you find ”Standards” (English version). Take time to read it and then voice your objections, if any.
http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca/
“Canadians. History’s greatest monsters. ”
hehehehehehehehe
Maybe history’s greatest whiners. Why are we so obsessed with what our culture is? Who the heck is George St. Pierre?
People like Amgad hate details, because details shred their whining to pieces.
So, a Hassidic sinagogue asked a gym to frost a few glasses? Ok, the fitness industry has been booming for a decade or more, while Hassidic Jews numbers were not hugely on the rise, so we can suggest with certainty that the gym was a newcomer there, with the synagogue outheritaging it by decades. It was not a Jewish expansion, just the opposite.
Even more, Hassidic Jews walk to their synagogues, so their synagogues are all located in the areas with significan jewish population – likely those in the gym were as Jewish as those in the synagogue, only less observant.
So one group of Jews asked another group of Jews to show-off less on Chabad – does that mean that all Westerners should abandon their civilised way of life and accept the status of Dhimmis out of sensitivity to the newcomers????
The citisens of Herouxville realised that their way of life is seen as unimportant because it is not defined as a statement of faith, so they defined it. Sounds good, although English translation will be appreciated.
Louise, George St. Pierre is the welter weight champion in the UFC. He is probably the most popular foreign born athlete who competes in the United States, only Parker from the Spurs(basketball) comes close. When I think of Canada I think GSP. Polite, seems like a truly decent person but not afraid to beat some ass.
Here is his tittle fight, turn the sound off. The worst song ever is on instead of the color commentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cslyL7EwOn4
Louise, George St. Pierre is the welter weight champion in the UFC. He is probably the most popular foreign born athlete who competes in the United States, only Parker from the Spurs(basketball) comes close. When I think of Canada I think GSP. Polite, seems like a truly decent person but not afraid to beat some ass.
Here is his tittle fight, turn the sound off. The worst song ever is on instead of the color commentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cslyL7EwOn4
Thanks Mike. You learn something new every day. The music was great. LOL!! Just right for a boxing match. Real macho!!
You want Canadian culture. Try this. A true Canadien.
I think the little Quebec town has been very very clever.
For some reason some groups seem to be calling discrimination at the proscription of such deeds (stoning , banning women from driving, signing cheques etc.)
Why are muslims in Quebec offended, they are not mentioned nor any group at all.LOL.
It’s not boxing, it’s MMA. All combat sports in one fight, minus strikes and throws that could kill someone. It’s crazy and global. MMA in Japan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ig-K4s4CfU&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FElSvA-qrog
Louise, do you live in western canada? The video was funny, complements on the tradition of Canadian humor.
You nucks do have George St. Pierre though, which counts for something until Hughes takes his belt back.
Don’t forget Steve Nash. Probably win his 3rd straight MVP award.
“but as an American I’m quite sure it’s something that incorporates Beer, Maple Syrup, plaid flannel, hockey, Mooses, Beavers, Back-Bacon, and Ice fishing ”
“You forgot the ‘aboot’ 😛 and the mounties… ”
You forgot “Tims”. If we lost Tims our economy would grind to a halt !
🙂
44. MikeK, yes I do live in western Canada and yes we do love to laugh at ourselves (inbetween bashing Americans).
Or we can do both at the same time.
If you are going to keep posting Canada videos, which are funny, I am going to match them with MMA youtubes until you admit it is pretty kickass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC0Klkx_KUE&mode=related&search=
Dave is correct about Nash. He is the most popular Canadian in America.
Okay. I quit. LOL! 😉
I love it that “The Fraggles” and “The Smurfs” were given as examples of American junk culture.
“Fraggle Rock” was filmed in Toronto and and was a co-production between British television company Television South (TVS), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. With help, no doubt, from Jim Henson company.
The Smurfs were a French-Belgian comic strip, first made into cartoons in the 60’s for Belgian TV. Then came “La Flûte à six schtroumpfs” in 1976 and then came some English language movies and finally the Hanna Barbera cartoons.
You’re drowning in well, joint Canadian, British, Belgian and American culture apparently.
That’s the thing about joint European-Canadian cultural hegemony! It’s so insidious! I’m just going to lock myself in my room, wrap myself in an American flag and listen to my old Rush albums! 😉
/irony off
I didn’t know Fraggle Rock was a Canadian production. See. We do have some great achievements after all!
Fraggle rock is insidious. The bourgeois Fraggles feast on the efforts of the proletarian doozers.
I think the tagline on the satiric story “The incredible Attuck” was that if Canada wasn’t inundated with American junk culture, she’d have to create her own.
I love the scene where Attuck, an Inuit (Eskimo to us Americans) who is exploiting his family to make soapstone carvings, gets rid of a cousin who wants better working conditions by showing him a stoplight for the first time and telling him that the way to cross the street safely is to wait for the light to turn red, then run as fast as you can.
C’mon if we are talking about bashing americans for Canadian comedy. Nobody does it beter than Rick Mercer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seYUbVa7L7w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhTZ_tgMUdo
Enjoy.
Hell, the French Canadians in the province of Quebec don’t even like the
French Quebecers have little tolerance for anything or one who isn’t French – they were probably addressing their rant to the last few English-speaking Quebecers left in Quebec anyhow.
Screwed that one up…..should read as follows:
French Quebecers have little tolerance for anything or one who isn’t French – they were probably addressing their rant to the last few English-speaking Quebecers left in Quebec anyhow.
Never aired, a video made by the cast of Fraggle Rock at the closing of the show The Fraggles look for jobs part 1 The Fraggles look for jobs part 2
I messed up, both links are to part 1.
But if you watch part one, you’ll see a link at the right to part 2.
Dave, I pulled this gem out of the comments on your first link:
“oh dude. I feel sorry for you. Completely hipnotized by your government. Your government destroyed those towers. Everyone knows it. Pity. Loose Change. Google. I guess your not FAMILIAR.”
How canadian is that! That is pretty much the Canada I know and tolerate. Mercer was funny though.
Hi folks,
Everybody seems to miss the point that stoning adulterous married people is part of the sunna of the prophet (pbuh). Stoning is in the hadith of Bukhari and Muslim in many places. There is also a hadith in bukhari (Volume 8, Book 82, Number 817: Narrated by Ibn ‘Abbas) that says that Umar (RAA) stated that there was a verse in the Quran that mandated stoning of married adulterers, but he tells that it seems the verse was removed from the Quran.
So everyone who calls himself a muslim should agree with the stoning issue. Otherwise he is a hypocrite (somebody who considers Islam as a supermarket and takes what he needs at that specific time and leaves the rest).
Some commenters have said that this practice is only applied in a few countries. You know why? Because the punishment is barbaric and most muslim countries do not want to go on with the barbarity of the real shariah wa alhamdu lillah. The same with the wife-beating issue according to Quran 4:34.
So I think that the Quebec town is completely right in stating that they do not want people in their town who do not reject a good portion of the Quran and the Sunna.
Cheers,
Jack Daniels
“Louise, George St. Pierre is the welter weight champion in the UFC. He is probably the most popular foreign born athlete who competes in the United States, only Parker from the Spurs(basketball) comes close.”
Not to mention Steve Nash the NBA’s MVP two years in a row, Doug Flutie of the NFL and of Course BC’s very own great export Pamela Anderson …. hahaha (Being a tv life guard qualifies as an athlete right?) hahahaha
GO CANUCKS!
Nations which sanction the public executions of women through stoning, should automatically be put on an International Crime Watch and a public website so everyone knows who they are. Anyone authorizing or partaking in public stonings should be tried as criminals in absentia in the International Court of the Hague. It doesn’t matter if these people are important figures in their respective societies. So, if these criminals so much as set foot outside of there countries and into others where the rulings of the International Court are recognized then it’d grounds for an automatic jail sentence—life in prison without parole. We don’t let child molesters go free anymore. So–why should murderers of helpless women? Those authorizing these immoral acts are no better than child molester filth & they should be treated as such.