Alicinha Veloso: discrimination against Muslims in Quebec and the fear of immigration in general
Column by Alicinha Veloso
Discriminação contra muçulmanos no Quebec e o medo da imigração em geral
Por Alicinha Veloso, revisão de Renata Campos
Não há islamofobia no Quebec, afirmou o primeiro-ministro François Legault, fechando a porta aberta por seu vice-primeiro-ministro Geneviève Guilbault para a criação de um dia nacional contra a islamofobia.
However, according to official statistics, Canada saw a significant increase in the number of hate crimes in Canada between 2016 and 2017, especially in Ontario and Quebec. Offences motivated by hatred of religion are the ones that have increased the most, with a jump of 80%.
The number of reported hate crimes soared in Quebec in 2017, a spike attributable to anti-Muslim abuse that nearly tripled, according to a report by Statistics Canada. February 2017, the month following the shooting at the Centre Cultural Islamic du Québec, alone accounted for a quarter (26%) of all anti-Muslim hate crimes reported to police.
In total, 489 hate crimes were recorded in Quebec in 2017, representing an increase of more than 50%. The number of crimes against Muslims almost tripled, rising from 41 in 2016 to 117 in 2017.
This has remained a sensitive issue in Quebec since the start of the debate on reasonable accommodations in 2007, followed by several attempts by successive governments, the Liberal Party, the Parti Québécois and now the CAQ, to legislate on the issue of secularism and religious attire.
The possible ban on the use of religious symbols by state representatives in positions of authority, which the CAQ advocates, would affect, for example, Muslim women who wish to wear the veil.
In Ottawa, the parliamentary heritage committee recommended almost a year ago that the federal government declare January 29 a "National Day of Remembrance and Activities on Islamophobia and All Other Forms of Religious Discrimination."
The idea was put forward by the National Council of Canadian Muslims, which wrote to the Prime Minister and was referred to committee after the adoption of Motion M-103 in the House.
Prejudices against Muslims still appear to be very prevalent in the population, according to a CROP survey conducted by Radio-Canada. In total, 2,513 people were interviewed in Canada, including 1,024 in Quebec.
67% of Quebecers and 61% of Canadians surveyed believe that the religious accommodation requested by Muslims shows that they do not really want to integrate and that anger towards them is justified. They also believe that all immigrants, regardless of nationality or religion, should abandon their culture and adopt Canadian culture.
"A significant proportion of Quebecers associate the Muslim religion, Muslims and their rituals with a threat," says the survey expert.
There is something visceral about people feeling threatened. There is fear. A threat to Quebec's cultural heritage, language, identity. There are people who say, "One day, their customs will dominate our society." It is completely irrational. Muslims represent only 3% of the population.
Both Canadians and Quebecers overestimate the number of Muslims living in the country. While they make up only 3.2 percent of the population, most Canadians believe they make up more than 5 percent of the population. Some estimate the number to be more than 15 percent.
The problem is that, in the minds of most Quebecers, integrating means leaving behind all cultural traits from one's country of origin and becoming a Quebecer. That's impossible!
According to the CROP survey, more than half of Quebecers remain reluctant to deal with mosque construction projects in their neighbourhoods.
"I don't know what kind of social initiative could be put in place to increase public understanding, so that they see more of the human being behind the symbol when they look at a Muslim," says the president of the company CROP.
Understanding systemic discrimination
A problem is systemic when it goes beyond isolated, individual situations. Rather, it is reflected in recurring and widespread problems, institutional policies and practices that exclude people, and injustices in many facets of society and across generations.
Although the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized the concept of systemic discrimination since the mid-1980s, there is still some confusion about how to identify it. To understand the concept, it is useful to analyze three levels of discrimination: micro, institutional and macro.
Micro level
The micro level refers to acts of discrimination between individuals. You might think of a racist comment made at work or a landlord refusing to rent to a person because of their religion, for example. Most people understand this form of discrimination.
But how do we move from an understanding of interpersonal discrimination to systemic discrimination? In the case of a person who is rejected, or overlooked for a promotion, or arrested by the police, each incident may seem isolated and exceptional. This is wrong. Research shows that discrimination can be recurrent and systematic for some groups.
For example, a study by the Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights reveals that a person with a surname like Ben-Saïd or Traoré is 60% less likely to be called for a job interview than a person with a surname like Bélanger or Morin.
Furthermore, let us remember that individuals’ ability to discriminate is integrally linked to their position, authority, power, and privilege within organizations. This means that we cannot ignore the power dynamics between, for example, a supervisor and his employee, between a police officer and a suspect, and between a teacher and his student. Ultimately, we cannot separate individual discrimination from its organizational context. Thus, when individual discrimination is recurrent within an organization, or when it is reinforced by inequalities of power and status, it becomes more than an individual problem. It is a systemic problem.
Institutional level
Second, there is the institutional level. In addition to relationships between individuals, discrimination can emanate from the policies and practices of our everyday organizations (schools, workplaces, public services). Often, these policies or rules appear neutral, while they discriminate against individuals based on their membership in a group. For example, if there are only stairs to access a workplace, people with physical disabilities will be excluded from that organization. If a school exam is scheduled on the day of a minority religious holiday, students of that religion will be negatively affected. And discriminatory effects exist even if they are unintentional and unplanned. One can then speak of systemic discrimination rooted in the policies, practices and norms of organizations.
Macro level
However, organizations do not operate in silos, far from each other and from society at large. This is what brings us to the macro level. Discrimination has a snowball effect and represents a vicious cycle. How? Consider two examples: women who are paid less for the same work live with this burden throughout their careers, resulting in an increase in the poverty rate among older women and also affecting their children and families. Similarly, when individuals from racialized communities are underrepresented in positions of power or overrepresented in prisons, this affects their economic, social, familial and human dignity.
The growing discrimination against Muslims ends up having consequences on the way society views immigrants in general, regardless of their religion. Many natives who oppose immigration policies justify their opposition by saying they are afraid of attacks, as if every immigrant were a potential terrorist.
What happens in a workplace, school or public service is also linked to broader public policies and political funding. For example, until recently, Quebec did not offer free public education to the children of undocumented immigrants, thus contributing to a cycle of exclusion of racialized people.
Quebecers fear immigration more than pollution
According to CIRANO, the Quebec government must make a special effort to raise public awareness about the benefits of immigration, particularly with regard to the labour shortage.
Almost half of Quebec's population believes that immigration poses a "great" or even "very high risk" for Quebec, according to a survey commissioned by the Interuniversity Center for Research in Organization Analysis (CIRANO).
In fact, 48% of the 1,000 people surveyed associate the arrival of tens of thousands of immigrants per year in Quebec with a "high" or "very high" risk.
Almost 40% of respondents believe that there are too many immigrants and that this is a threat to the “purity” of the country. In addition, more than half of Canadians express fears about the future of their culture and identity. This fear is not new. In the case of Quebec, the percentage of people suspicious of immigrants has been between 30% and 50% for 25 years. For CROP president Alain Giguère, this perception of threat, which can lead to intolerance, is rooted in an increasingly complex society.
"Part of the native population is having difficulty living with this increasingly diverse population and there is a potential for intolerance," he says, adding that "ethnic intolerance is often the corollary of a difficulty in living with a society that is very complex or very uncertain, especially during economic crises.
Use of the veil
"If you think I wore the hijab because someone forced me to, the answer is no. It's a personal choice." This is Naïla Khalil's response to the veil that hides her hair. Why such a response? Because many people perceive the veil as a symbol of submission. "I met my husband in 2009 and my father is not even a practicing Muslim," says the young engineer. She explains the lack of external pressure on her decision. "The veil is my way of feeling connected to God. I feel happy, I feel at peace. I tried to stop wearing it for two months and I was very unhappy." Khalil was at a meeting at the Monique-Corriveau library for the Open Book activity with the Muslim community, the perfect opportunity to break down prejudices and ask more sensitive questions, explains Lucille Langlois, head of intercultural practices at the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale.
All religions are good, but it depends on the people. The mistake is to use religion to serve someone's interests.
“Because of the attacks everywhere, we feel compelled to justify ourselves,” said Naila Khalil. “There are a billion Muslims in the world. But because of Islamic extremists, it makes us responsible.”
Data on the Muslim population in Quebec
60% of Muslims living in Quebec have never attended a mosque.
Only 10% of Muslim women wear the hijab.
The Muslim community in Quebec City is the most educated in Canada: 62% of men and 50% of women have university degrees.
Prejudices need to be broken. Public policies should include recognizing where society needs to improve in order to treat everyone equally, regardless of religion. Public servants are individuals. The State must be secular and individuals cannot be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs. Public buildings, public spaces, and government actions must be secular, but individual freedoms cannot be interfered with. A teacher who teaches wearing a veil is not forcing her students to wear it.
The data shows a real intolerance towards people of Muslim faith in Quebec and an increase in hate crimes towards this group of immigrants. We can also see the fear regarding immigration as a whole. That is why it is important that all immigrants, including Brazilians, fight for a more tolerant society.
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