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Conservative Party’s campaign regarding Muslim women is nauseating

My fellow Muslim women, we have a new hero. He takes the shape of a cowboy hat-donning middle-aged man with skin the colour of potato salad that’s been sitting out in the sun too long. He looks out for our best interests, working day and night to rip off our un-Canadian face veils, free us from our oppressive religions, and inform us of the barbaric nature of our own cultures.

While I’m flattered, I don’t quite understand why Muslim women have suddenly become pretty much the entire focus of the Conservative Party’s campaign. I’m aware that Harper has felt sufficiently threatened by the niqab for a few years, but last week Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced seemingly out of nowhere a newfound urgency to tackle barbaric cultural practices such as child marriages, female genital mutilation, and so-called honour killings — things that have been illegal in Canada for quite some time now. The new RCMP tip line will be a resource for immigrant children and women who are “at risk of being victimized” — but only if they are victims of culture-derived practices, not your run-of-the-mill generic wife-beating. Money will also be sent overseas to organizations working with girls in Syria and Iraq; Alexander mentions the brutal attacks these girls undergo by ISIS, but fails to let Canadians know that Assad’s regime has killed more than 125 times the number of children that ISIS has.

If you’re wondering how exactly the suffering of Syrian girls is relevant to the discussion of the upcoming federal election, well, so am I. Closer to home, I’m curious as to how Harper is making a name for himself as caring for Canadian women while ignoring the 1,200 missing and murdered Aboriginal women that he publicly dismissed as unimportant to him right now. I also wonder if he is aware of the dire status of women’s shelters in Canada, or if he thinks regular old domestic violence is not a big enough problem to deserve a hotline or funding. It’s a little jarring that this tip line will encourage Canadians to snitch on their neighbours when they suspect women may be “at risk” of becoming victims — without addressing the millions of current domestic violence victims. Why is it only Muslim women that need saving?

The most mind-boggling aspect of this Muslim alienation campaign is that somehow, horrifically, it’s working. Conservatives are leading in polls as of week nine, after consistently bringing identity politics and so-called “Canadian values” to the front of the table every time. Naturally, they deny pushing the agenda of xenophobia at every press conference, even after multiple hate crimes against Muslims are sprouting up across the country, even after Quebec had to legislate that Islamophobia is, indeed, not nice. I am slowly watching the climate of this country change to that of fear-mongering and xenophobia before my own eyes. The welcoming Canadian attitude on which we prided ourselves has suddenly taken on a distinctly America-post-9/11 vibe.

It is downright nauseating to watch Harper capitalize off real issues that actually do affect Muslim women, as well as women of all races and religions, only to further his lead amongst similarly intolerant citizens. Most irritating of all is that he is doing so under the extremely thin veil of caring about women’s issues. Or, wait, am I still allowed to talk about veils?

5 Comments

  1. However interesting it might be to read the opinion of a self-identified Muslim woman on the Conservative’s stance regarding the niqab and its inappropriateness at the citizenship ceremony, this individual has lost a great deal of credibility by previously revealing herself to be an apologist for Arab Palestinian terrorism and calumniator of our liberal democratic ally Israel. One wonders what other Islamist values she is in sympathy with.

  2. Today’s most useful target for abuse by the Conservative party, while claiming that they are protecting them from abuse, is muslim women. In past days and years they have done the same to sex trade workers, legitimate voters, native Canadians, veterans, and tax payers. The full list might be longer. This is the politics of division, a tactic that pits one faction of the populace against another, and appears to be friendly to them all, repeatedly, until everyone finds enemies among everyone else and can only find a friend within the party that created all of the problems.

    It is nauseating to see our populace so fractured, intentionally, for the sole purpose of dominating all of the fractured and with no interest in doing any good. This is your Conservative party.

    1. Had the Liberals and NDP done the right thing in the first place and supported the Conservative government in their refusal to surrender to this transparent Islamist legal maneuver to establish a precedent that would open the door to the further encroachment of barbaric Islamist practices on Canadian soil, there would have been no issue. Instead, these two parties made the curious decision to go against overwhelming public sentiment and their left-leaning supporters in the media followed suit, obligingly keeping it in the headlines day after day in a bid to win the public over to their side. It doesn’t seem to have worked. But go ahead, blame the attention that this issue has received solely on the Conservatives. It fits the narrative that you ascribe to.

      1. Only the Conservatives have fought every court decision against them, keeping it a news item. Any reasonable person would have accepted court decisions long ago. Facts, not my narrative, determine that this is entirely a Conservative manufactured issue.

        1. This is indeed a “manufactured issue,” but only insofar as Zunera Ishaq and her financial backers have opted to make it so, with help from the each of the parties (including the Conservatives) who thought to make political hay out of it and the media who have exploited the issue for their own ends. The Conservative government is abiding by its principals in continuing to appeal this case and in so doing they have the backing of a substantial majority of Canadians. This is all about establishing precedent and given the rapid Islamisation of Western societies and the steady encroachment of practices and cognitions that are anathema to fundamental liberal democratic values, it is incumbent upon whatever government is in power to hold the line on such challenges that strike at the very heart of Canadian identity. A handful of women now could very well turn into a flood in subsequent years, just as the demolition of one sacred principle (that of equality between the sexes in deference to cultural relativism) could well lead to a further tumbling down of principles held dear. It should also be noted that the niqab and burqa are symptomatic of a much broader ideological and cultural divide in the Islamic world. It’s adoption is on the increase even in once comparatively modern societies that had previously shunned such regressive and misogynistic garb and is indicative of the more rigid, fundamentalist strain of Islam is extending its grip upon the moderate variants. In consideration of the future of this country and of its female populace in particular, we must put an abrupt halt to the spread of this pathogen on Canadian soil once and for all. That means not only to ban the wearing of this restrictive and ideological apparel at the citizenship ceremony but in the country at large.

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